


Behind the Confession

by Chatlote



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Canon Divergence, Confessions, Depressed Lance (Voltron), Fix-It, Galra Keith (Voltron), Galra Reveal Scene, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post Season2 Ep8, the one they didn't give us
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2018-09-25 00:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 47,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9794993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chatlote/pseuds/Chatlote
Summary: After Keith found out about his Galra lineage he requests The Blade of Marmora to keep it a secret from the rest of the Paladins.What he didn't expect was that on that very same day he would be forced to confess a secret related to him. On an attempt to hide the fact he was Galra something else ended up being revealed.





	1. The Trial

"We agree to work with you and your people." Kolivan, the leader of The Blade of Marmora told Keith shortly after the Red Lion stopped attacking their base. Keith paid little to no attention to those words.

Ever since the dagger he had carried close to him his whole life had turned into a sword he had barely moved from his place. Only having moved closer to where his lion was, spending his time staring blankly at the symbol on his weapon, a symbol he had known his whole life but that had held no real meaning until now. His thoughts were a jumbled mess and still trying to process everything that had happened.

Thankfully, Shiro seemed to be handling the conversation with Kolivan in his stead, so he had some time to let himself reflect.

First of all, he had galra blood in his veins. He shared blood with the same species that they had been fighting until now. Keith wasn't sure how he should feel about this turn of events.

And then there was the Blade of Marmora, the ones who had just found out about his galra lineage along with him. Unsure what the right path to take was, he came to a rushed conclusion.

Shaking his head slightly, Keith recollected his thoughts to make a simple request. He turned to Kolivan and his people, who stood behind him.  "Can you keep the part of me being galra a secret for now?" Keith didn't mean to sound demanding but he couldn't help his tone. He felt Shiro gaze on him. _Probably pitying me... at least that's better than hating me._

Kolivan looked between him and Shiro with thoughtful eyes, then he looked back at his companions, one stood closer to Kolivan than the others and nodded. Turning to Keith. he replied. "Very well."  A pause, he frowned as if he was judging Keith all over again. "Nevertheless, you do plan to tell your team about it eventually, yes? The Blade values honesty between team members. Secrets can be problematic."

"I-" Keith hesitated. "Yes. I do-" He knew he didn't have a choice. "-but I need time to think about it." Keith knew that time wouldn't fix how strongly some members of the group felt towards the galra but maybe it would help him deal with those reactions better when they came.

Kolivan nodded slowly, something that looked like understanding in his eyes. With no other business to attend between just the three of them, they boarded the Red Lion along with Kolivan and went to meet the others before they got too worried.

               

With the help of the Blade of Marmora their plans of attack against Zarkon finally started to take shape. Their time was limited, in little more than a week they needed to launch their attack or it would be too late, but it was enough to make preparations that would guarantee their success.  Kolivan had been a great help, pointing them towards what should be their first step of the plan, which would be going to a certain planet that went by the name Dhaki, and that they should stay there for most of the time they had left.

Allura had reacted negatively at first, with her vast knowledge of the universe and different colonies she couldn't believe there was one that could help them and that she had not heard of, to which Kolivan replied with an amused, somewhat proud, smile. "Of course you haven't heard about them. No offense Princess, after all we wouldn't know about it either them they hadn't contacted us first. They have been taking in several of our brothers when they turn too old to fight and some of the people we managed to rescue." He explained neatly. "But apart from that they are a highly intelligent and resourceful community that has managed to hide themselves from the Galra Empire, they are also extremely pacifist, thus they use their resources to hide themselves instead of taking part in the war."

Allura frown softened at that but she wasn't ready to trust this plan just yet. "If they are as pacifist as you say, why do you believe they shall help us against Zarkon forces?"

"They have excellent fighters but they won't join us in battle." Kolivan said as a matter of fact. "But they will help us come up with a plan good enough to defeat Zarkon, one of our best strategists is there and I value his opinions greatly." Allura didn't seem completely satisfied yet so Kolivan added. "If we are going to work together, Princess, I would suggest you try to trust us a bit more. We have a common purpose and neither of us will rest soundly until we see it fulfilled."

Sighing with resignation, Allura complied. "Very well, let us go then, we don't have a tick to waste."

With that said everyone started to walk away to take their positions but were stopped by Kolivan. "Just one more thing" he paused as he looked at each paladin "I think I should warn you that it is extremely likely that when we arrive the five of you will need to face a trial to prove yourselves trustworthy, they are pacifists but also very suspicious, they firmly believe their trials are the reason why their planet has maintained such prolonging peace."

"What type of trial?" Keith spoke up first, after The Blade of Marmora, the idea of facing another trial didn't sound especially pleasing.

Kolivan shook his head. "I can't be sure, I haven't contacted them in a while and the trial changes but it's existence is a consistent part of their culture."

Shiro was the one to step forward and speak for the rest of them. "If that's what it will take then so be it." 

 

They reached their destination quickly, thanks to the use of a wormhole, however they had been told to wait a couple hours for the people of Dahki to approach them, as otherwise they would most likely be identified as threats. Shiro suggested that they waited on their own rooms and rested, as none of them knew what the possible trial would hold, no one argued as they were running on almost no sleep.

Keith was exhausted but he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, a part of him might have even been afraid of it, if dreams about his father came in his sleep he doubted he would feel any better after waking up. So he decided to wander the castle instead, he reached the longue.

He had expected it to be empty but to his surprise Lance sat alone with his arms crossed at his chest, in what looked like a somewhat protective pose, looking down at the ground deep in thought. Keith felt his heart tighten, being alone with Lance wasn't good for him, he felt like one day his feelings for the Blue Palladin would make him do something he would regret. Keith was about to turn around to leave when Lance looked up and they made eye contact. "Oh, hey Keith." He paused awkwardly. "You don't need to leave just because I am here you know."

"Uhm, right." It was too late now, so Keith walked over to the opposite side of the couch which ended up being right in front of Lance.

"Tell me about The Blade of Marmora." Lance said after a second of silence. His voice sounded somewhat more demanding than usual and his eyes were fixed on Keith.

For Keith, the conversation went from awkward to dangerous, he didn't want anyone mentioning him and galra in the same sentence right now. He avoided Lance's stare "What do you mean?" Keith took the safest and most unsuspecting path.

"How did you and Shiro manage to convince them to join us?"

"I didn't really do anything, Shiro was the one who did the talking." He made a mental note to talk to Shiro later and tell him about this chat so their stories would line up in case someone asked. "At some point he and Kolivan weren't even in the same room as me." Not technically a lie.

Lance didn't look convinced, and Keith tried his best to not look nervous and wondered why the hell they were having this conversation to start with. "Red started attacking them, why?" Lance said, his tone was slightly softer but still suspicious.

Looking back at Lance he asked "Are you asking that because you were concerned or is it something else?" Lance shrugged, his expression was hard to read and that was frustrating. "Nothing happened, Red freaked out for no reason."

"I am not blind, I can see your skin is bruised." Lance stated with a raised eyebrow.

_Shit_. He took a few seconds to come up with a excuse good enough as he looked at the ground. "Yeah... well fine, you caught me, I freaked out when they took Shiro into another room with their commander because I didn't trust them so they were forced to pin me down. There, now you know." He tried to sound bitter at the last part to make it sound more realistic, hoping Lance would buy it.

He had expected some type of immediate reaction but when none came he looked up to see Lance staring at him amused, a half smile on his face, when their gazes connected Lance brought a hand to cover his own mouth as he chuckled softly. Keith eyes opened a bit more as he tried to send back the butterflies at the end of stomach, trying to replace that with half-baked anger. "Are you that happy to know I got my ass kicked by a bunch of galras?"

Lance stopped laughing, _thank god,_ to stare at him smugly, with his arms crossed again. "This means I was right that you weren't the right one for the mission and you are just a hot head who shoots first and asks questions later."

He rolled his eyes, "And does it make you feel better to know I wasn't the right one for the mission?"

"A bit." Lance muttered under his breath, so softly that Keith almost didn't hear. Then drastically and suddenly, Lance stood up, the smirk still in his face dropping his hands to the pockets of his jacket.  "Well now that that's not bothering me anymore, I am gonna catch some z's before they put us through the hell trial." He started walking only stopping at the door. "Oh and Keith, as I am obviously right about everything. I suggest you do the same, you probably need sleep more than the rest of us after getting beaten up." And without waiting for a reply Lance was gone.

Keith grunted as he let his head fall into his hands, this had been one train wreck of a conversation and he hated the fact he actually had half-enjoyed it.  _Stupid attractive Lance, with stupid cute laugh, that goes from being nice to a jerk._

 

It took a while before they had been allowed to enter Dhaki. Then that moment was over and they were directly in front of a large audience, in a huge auditorium where they had been escorted to right after they landed.

The auditorium was large and packed, it seemed to be constructed mostly out of metal and tainted white and blue glass, that seemed to also work as light source, filling the place in soft blues, he didn't think any of these substances even existed in planet Earth.

The audience hadn't been exactly what Keith expected, it was a mix of several races, the ones that existed in most quantity were small white creatures that had a somewhat humanoid form, apart from a set of donkey ears at top of their rounded head, they had white legs and arms, with black fingers, and completely blue eyes. Their clothes followed the same color scheme as the walls and their body. Keith assumed these were the natives, Dhakians.

The other most noticeable race were galras, large purple creatures, not hard to miss, but it was weird to see them wear something that wasn't heavy armor, replaced by large blue clothes. Apart from these two races Keith couldn't really identify any of the others, who also existed in a significant smaller quantity, but shared the blue, white and black baggy clothes.

Closer to the paladins, sat five other aliens on a large glass table, three of them Dhakians, two Galra. The one Dhakian sitting in the middle, wore purely black clothes along some kind of weird necklace that the others didn't have. Keith guessed this was their version of a council. The one in black seemed to judge them for a moment, then they gave them a thin but large smile before speaking, it was a somewhat feminine voice, low but it echoed through the auditorium.

"Paladins of Voltron! We welcome you into our home!" She paused, making sure all the murmuring had stopped. "That- is what I would like to say, but as you most likely know from my good friend Kolivan, we cannot fully accept you until you go through a trial, to prove yourself trustworthy before our community. It may look like something silly to you but we value and trust our culture above all." She stopped and looked at them as if waiting for an answer.

Shiro stepped forward and after one moment and spoke, his words and expression filled with determination. When Keith saw him like this, he knew he would never be able to lead Voltron as well as Shiro, not that he wanted to lead it to begin with. "We were indeed informed of this and we, Paladins of Voltron, accept and respect your decision to go through your trial."

"Very well." The dhakian said, with a even wider smile, that Keith didn't expect to be possible. "I shall present myself first then. My name is Shirif, I represent the wishes of the people of this planet. What are yours?"

One by one they presented themselves, giving their names and stating which Paladin they were. First Pidge, then Hunk, then Shiro, then Lance, and finally himself, taking one step declared. "I am Keith, the Paladin of the Red Lion."

Shirif seemed satisfied but at the same time deep in thought. "Keith, Hunk and Pidge." Shirif called out and anxiously the three of them nodded. "No need for worry, it is just that I have a simple request to make to the three of you. Me and the ones of my kind aren't aware of the colors you have mentioned, as we can only see this world in black, white and blue. So while we will offer clothes for all of you to walk around, I suppose I should note none of them will match your Paladin colors. This is simply a measure to make all of us more comfortable."

The information had been a bit surprising, Shiro was already speaking up on their behalf."We thank you for your hospitality." He said with a bow, to which the four of them quickly followed in doing.

"It's no problem." Shirif said kindly as they raised their heads. Then, Shirif joined hands and spoke again. "With that out of the way I suggest we proceed to the trial, you do not need to worry about it as the only way to fail it is to refuse to participate in it." She waved her hand and then there were more dhakians walking in, bringing a table along with them, in which five weirdly shaped cups stood. While they poured some sort of substance in them Shirif turned to Allura and Coran who had been standing a few steps behind them. "Princess Allura we have heard about you and your people, we respect your father and your kind and for that you do not need to worry about this trial." Turning his head a bit to the side, Keith saw Allura and Coran nod quietly in response.

Shirif turned her attention to the paladins once again. "Our people have come to realize that nothing is more powerful in relationships than sharing our deepest fears, concerns or secrets." She pointed to the table with the cups. "Like I said there isn't a way to fail this trial, what we will have you do is drink what will be given to you and then you will confess before us one of your fears or secrets. Do not be afraid as your secrets are safe with us."

Keith took a second to process these words, and then took another second to think of what he could possibly say before he start panicking. He knew exactly what the words out of his mouth would be as soon as he took that drink. Keith shot a look at the others, looking for someone to protest for him. He caught Shiro looking at him with apprehension. "We have no other choice." Shiro told him, softly, not loud enough for the council to hear. 

"No, I can't-"

His whisper was cut off as Shiro looked over to the council. "We are ready." Meanwhile Keith could feel Lance, who stood between him and Shiro, stare at both of them in confusion.

"Good." Shirif said, still smiling. "You are free to choose on your own, the drink will just make sure that it's true and that if you can't come up with something on your own it will find an answer for you." She explained. "Pidge please step forward."

Pidge did as asked, reluctantly and slowly. One of the cups was brought to them. Taking a deep breath beforehand, Pidge drank the whole thing in one go. Silence filled the room in anticipation.  Then Pidge was talking, clearly enough for everyone on the auditorium to hear, their voice was somewhat void of emotion, almost robotic. "I still think about leaving the team to look for my family, because I think it might already be too late." Pidge sighed at the end.

"Thank you Pidge." Shirif said.

"Your secret is safe with us." The rest of the auditorium completed in unison.

Shirif pointed to the empty space at the left of the council's table and Pidge walked forward and stood there in silence. "Hunk next please."

Hunk moved a few steps mechanically, it was obvious he was restless. He drank the substance in the cup. "Many times I wish this was just a dream and I could go back home, to Earth." Just like Pidge, Hunk words had barely carried any emotion in them but Keith could see his shoulders trembling.

The process repeated, as Hunk walked towards Pidge, Shirif thanked Hunk and the auditorium chanted the same sentence, as she called for Shiro next, and Keith realized he would be the last one.

"Dude relax, it will be fine." He heard Lance whisper besides him. The kind gesture had been unexpected and didn't really help Keith situation but he appreciated it nonetheless.

Shiro marched his way to the cup and swiftly drank his share. His voice barely showed any change to the one he used to talk with Shirif. "I don't believe I will survive our battle against Zarkon, and I plan to leave Keith, the Red Paladin, to lead Voltron." Keith was slightly taken back by those words, Shiro had already told him this several times but never with so much certainty in his voice, and Keith didn't like it.

At his side he felt Lance tense up, and stare at him, he stared back, and Keith couldn't tell what Lance was thinking apart from the obvious disbelief, with his eyes open wide and mouth open as if he had something to say. Lance's name was being called so he abruptly turned away and stepped forward, taking the cup in his hand and drinking from it.

Silence spread across the room, once again, expecting Lance to talk. Three seconds passed and then four, it was taking longer than what had taken the others. Lance whole body seemed to be shaking and Keith was getting worried. 

Before he could do anything Shirif spoke up "Let us know what torments you Lance of the Blue Lion."

This seemed to cause him to react, Keith couldn't see his face but he saw him lower his head and stare at the ground. "I- I don't think I am good enough." The broken sound of Lance's voice hit Keith almost instantly. While the others had stated their own fears robotically, Lance looked to be in physical pain with every word. . "I think that I am not important enough for this team, and easily replaceable."

The twisted worry Keith felt was amplified by his stupid crush on the boy. He had thought Lance was confident but he had been clearly wrong and now he wanted to be able to comfort him and help him like he had once during a bonding moment that Lance refused to acknowledge, which was one of the reasons why Keith didn't move from his place, clenching his hands into fists instead, accepting the fact that Lance wouldn't want help from him anyway.

As Lance dragged his feet to stand beside Shiro, who gave him a pat on the back. Keith sighed trying to clear his head. It was his turn and his options were limited, as he took a step forward and took the last cup on his hand he looked over to his teammates, thinking over their confessions, he didn't have a family or home waiting for him, he didn't fear his own death but after Shiro confession he realized that he feared behind left alone to lead Voltron. Shirif had said they were free to choose their own secret, maybe there was a chance he could say that instead of confession about his Galra lineage.

Taking a deep breath he took the substance in his mouth, the taste reminded him of blueberries and wasn't necessarily unpleasant but it was thicker than he expected and left a weird feeling on his throat. When he looked over to his teammates again, standing just a few feet away from him Lance caught his attention, as he stared at him with glassy wet eyes and arms crossed at his chest, as if he was closing in on himself.

Before Keith could think about it, the words were pouring out of his mouth. "I have a crush on Lance, the pilot of the Blue Lion."


	2. Troubling Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance isn't as dumb as others might think.

Keith gave himself a single second to think about his own words.

This hadn't been how he expected to confess to Lance, because he had never planned to confess to start with, he was fine with taking these feelings with him to the grave as Keith was completely sure they would never be returned. That was also why he wasn't exactly finding himself regretting the words.

Honestly he just felt relief, he didn't have to pretend anymore, his galra lineage hadn't been found and maybe this would actually somehow cheer Lance up, giving Lance another thing to make fun of about him, Keith preferred that to seeing Lance in pain again.

He sighed, somewhat pleased with the outcome of events. This was for the best of the team. Then, he finally let himself focus on Lance and his reaction. Ignoring the rest of the auditorium repeating the same mantra as before.               

The first thing he saw was within his expectations, Lance was dumbfounded, his eyes were open wide and his mouth hanged open. But that had been only for a moment, and after that moment was over, things started taking a turn that Keith couldn't  have predicted. Lance mouth turned into a small smile as he stared at Keith with what looked like... pity? 

Keith felt his heart stop beating. Lance's eyes were shinning brighter than usual, and it took him one second to realize it was because of the tears. In an instant they were overflowing and falling, Lance was laughing bitterly as he raised  his hands to his own eyes, rubbing them and his cheeks to stop the tears from falling, but failing.

Every time his laugh grew a bit louder, Keiths' heart tightened a bit more.  _I fucked up,_ he didn't know how or why but he knew that was the truth.  A sniff interrupted the laugh and then Lance was walking, three, four steps. Five steps and he was past Keith, going in the direction of the only exit in the room. Taking his sixth step Lance started running and didn't take long until he was no longer in anyone's vision.

Keith was at a loss, and so were the rest of the people in the room. The silence felt suffocating and he needed someone that wasn't him to stop it, he could hear his own heartbeat drumming in his ears, his head was buzzing and everything felt  _wrong wrong wrong._

Hunk was the one to cut through those sounds and help him regain focus. "Dude, Keith, go after him."               

He stared at Hunk in surprise, not expecting that to be an option, not because Keith didn't want to go after Lance but because he didn't think it would help anyone... but it was Hunk who had said it, and no one could refuse Hunk, and he was Lance best friend right? If Hunk thought that this was the right decision then Keith was ready to trust him.

From Hunk he shifted his gaze to Shirif, looking for some kind of permission, that even if he didn't get he would leave either way; that hadn't been necessary though. Shirif smiled and spoke up. "All the Paladins of Voltron have passed the trial and therefore I declare this meeting over-" Keith didn't stand around long enough to hear the rest.

               

Keith prayed that Lance had gone  back to the castle, which they had landed near the building where they had been taken to immediately after. So going back to the castle wasn't especially hard but if Lance had went anywhere else Keith would have no idea how to search for him on this unknown planet.

He ran through the corridors of the castle and was starting to lose hope, he had expected to have caught up with Lance by now. But his prayers had been answered when he reached the corridor with their rooms, spotting Lance just a couple steps away from his own room.

"Lance! Wait!" Keith called out as he kept running up until he was right in front of Lance.               

Lance froze in place, not turning to acknowledge Keith presence but also not moving to open the door, he just stared at it. Keith noticed that even though there were no more tears falling down the traces of dry tears were still there, along with his eyes swollen and red and his cheeks and nose slightly blushed.               

"You are forgiven, now leave." Lance said, his voice cracking and shaky.

He hadn't expected this to be the first thing that Lance said to him. "I- what?"

At this, Lance finally turned to look at him, an eyebrow raised. "You didn't come here to apologize?"

Honestly speaking, Keith had no idea what he planned to say to Lance once he found him. "Apologize for what?"

His question was ignored. "Did you come here expecting a answer, then?"

"No!"He denied way too fast and way too loud, he corrected himself "I mean- no, I didn't, you don't need to reply I just-"  _don't think you would ever like me_  "you can ignore what I said if you want."

Lance pinched his nose and inhaled, then he proceeded to speak while gesturing with his hands, as Keith noticed he often did. "Okay Keith, here is the thing. I am not dumb. I may act like it but I am not, and I realize you used me as a scapegoat to whatever bullshit secret you didn't want to say."               

He opened his mouth to reply but closed it, maybe out of guilt or maybe because of lack of a answer good enough.

Lance eyes were no longer on him when he spoke again. "Anyway that's why I figured you came here to apologize, but whatever I just want to be alone right now." Lance's body was trembling, the idea that he was going to cry again because of Keith felt too painful to dwell on.

"You- you may be right but that doesn't make what I said any less true." Keith said with the little willpower he had left.

"I... I know. That bullshit drink is the real deal." Lance sighed while clenching his hands into fists. "Unless you somehow managed to fake emotions, which wouldn't surprise me considering how perfect you are at everything." He spit out the words resentfully.

His words had hurt Keith, and from the look Lance made when they locked eyes for a brief moment, Keith knew that the pain was visible in his expression.

"Anyway if that's all, goodbye." Lance quickly said, his voice wavering as he tried to end the conversation.

As he raised his arm to open the door, Keith grabbed it, stopping him. "Lance- You shouldn't be alone right now."

"Why?" Lance's patience had ran out and Keith could feel it. His words were bitter. "Because you found out I am depressed or because you feel responsible? You didn't care how your stupid confession would make me feel before don't pretend you care now."

Shaking Keith off, he walked inside his room and closed the door before Keith could come up with anything to say.

 

There were very few places on the castle that Keith liked to spend his free time on, the one he used the most was the training room, time went by quickly when he focused all this attention on the fights. However, at that moment, he was mentally and psychically exhausted from the lack of sleep and roller coaster of emotions so it didn't seem like the most promising idea.

So he went to the hangar instead, he found it calming to sit close to Red while he lost himself in thought. It was one of the places where he could have his guard down, he trusted Red to protect him and he felt safe. From their connection he could tell that Red felt more than happy to comply. Part of him wondered if this new feeling between them was the reason why  their bond had been so strong lately.

When the hangar door opened, Keith found out that he wasn't the only one who wanted to spend time with his lion. Shiro was also there, sitting close to Black, his back turned to the entrance.

Not wanting to disturb him, or talk to him, Keith tried his to sneak his way to Red. Unfortunately for him Shiro didn't have the same idea. "How did things go with Lance?"

Keith turned around to see Shiro face him, looking obviously interested. He ignored the question on purpose, hoping Shiro would understand that he didn't want to talk about it. "Hey Shiro, what are you doing here?" He tried to ask casually.

He didn't answer for a few seconds, observing Keith first. Then he opened his mouth as he turned to his lion. "Me and Black decided it was for the best that we spoke everyday so that Zarkon doesn't track us."

"How so?" It was something Keith had briefly feared, the idea of having been followed all the way here.

Shiro raised his hand to touch the metal paw of Black. "Her idea is that if I remind her everyday who her Paladin is, she will be able to push Zarkon away. I don't know if it will work but I trust her." He explained, looking fondly at his Lion.

Keith smiled. He was glad to hear about how much Black cared for Shiro. "I will never be able to be the Black Paladin, you might have plans to leave it to me but you need to understand that no one can replace you Shiro."

Shiro looked at him with a sad smile. "You might not have a choice; and either way you already piloted her once."

"Because you were in danger and you are too important for both of us to lose you." Keith reasoned as he crossed his arms.

"How did it go with Lance?" Shiro repeated his earlier question. Keith couldn't help but look away and sigh, he had no idea how to answer the question. "How are you going to deal with this?" Shiro asked.

"I don't know." He confessed.

"I would like to say that you have until the end of the week to deal with this." From the corner of his vision he saw Shiro standing up and walk over to him. "But Zarkon can attack us at any time and we need to be able to form Voltron."

Keith looked to his feet. "I... I know. I just don't know how I am going to fix this." He was too tired for this.

"How about tonight?"

The suggestion made him look up, confused. "He has literally just shut a door on my face, I doubt he wants to see me again today." Keith admitted.

Shiro laughed, "Well he might not have a choice, they are throwing us a welcoming party. "

"I still don't know how to talk to him." He felt Shiro give him a funny look as he said that. Raising an eyebrow Keith questioned. "What?"

"So you really like him?" Shiro looked amused.

Keith felt the heat rise to his face, he hoped he wasn't blushing. He imagined this is what it felt like when older brothers found out about your crush and teased you about it. Embarrassed, Keith replied "I- don't think that's the problem right now. Well it is but-"

Shiro interrupted his rambling, still looking entertained."You never told me."

With his arms still crossed, he drummed his fingers against his arm, a annoying habit of his when he was nervous, which wasn't something that happened much lately. "I didn't plan to tell anyone to start with."

"But now you did, so what do you want to do about it?"

Shiro voice was calm, but the interrogation was making Keith fidget in his place, the pressure making him unable to think clearly. "Nothing? I just- we try to pretend it never happened so we can form Voltron again?"

"What if Lance doesn't want that?"

That idea hadn't crossed his mind after the latest conversation with Lance. "I mean what else can we do? It's obvious he doesn't like me back!" Keith was raising his voice unconsciously. He didn't want to get hopeful for no reason, he was fine with pretending, it was easier to pretend than to hope for something and be denied of it.

Shiro didn't seem to think the same. "Why would you think that?"

"Do I really have to reply to that?" It was too painful to reply, the list of reasons why Lance wouldn't like him back was too big.

He shrugged. "All I am saying is that I don't think either of us know Lance enough to know how he is feeling."

Keith didn't want to dwell on the subject further, he had come here to think alone. He shrugged and turned his back on Shiro. "If you say so. I am going to hang out with Red for a bit."

Walking over to his lion, he sat against red, cold, metal paw and rested his head against it. The cold felt nice, closing his eyes, he felt himself calm down and his head clear up meanwhile he could hear a distant mechanical purr on the corner of his mind. It felt soothing to know Red was trying to comfort him and before Keith knew it he was fast asleep.

                

Thankfully no dreams came to him during his short sleep. Keith was shaken awake by Shiro who informed him that two hours had passed and they needed to get ready for the party.

Lazily, he made his way to his room, where he found dhakians clothes that had been sent for him. He frowned when all he saw was a white looking dress and some sandals, then he remembered seeing some people on the audience wearing something similar. After he put it on he realized it reminded him of chiton dresses, with two blue buttons-like fasteners holding the fabric at his shoulders. It was somewhat uncomfortable to wear so little, he felt way too exposed. Deciding to no fight this fate, he slipped his feet into the white sandals and made his way to the bridge.

When he arrived only Pidge was there, wearing a oversized blue jumper, he felt somewhat jealous for their obvious more comfortable clothing. As soon as they spot him Pidge let out a snort, Keith sighed. "Nice dress Keith, trying to impress someone?" They said with a wiggle of eyebrows.

Ignoring the obvious attempt of a tease Keith changed subject. "Where are the others?" Shiro had went to get dressed too but he had no idea where everyone else was.

Still looking rather entertained at his outfit, Pidge replied. "Hunk went to get Lance, the Princess and Coran went to get dressed."

They didn't have to wait long for the whole group to show up. First came Shiro, wearing a baggy black pair of shirt and pants, then Coran, who was wearing the same as Keith, and Allura who was using a surprisingly beautiful yet simple blue summer dress, and lastly Hunk and Lance, who made their presences known even before the doors opened.

"I just don't understand why you have normal clothes while I am stuck wearing a dress." Lance voice rang out through the corridors, obviously angry.

Hunk voice followed "Lance I don't think that's a dress, it's-"

Lance interrupted him at the same time the door opened and their voices became more clear. "If it doesn't have pants it's a dress." He said with his arms crossed at his chest. Keith blinked as he saw Lance enter. He was wearing a blue version of Keith's outfit, and it wasn't like there was anything surprising about it except the fact that he managed to look even more attractive than usual, he had seen him in less clothing when they had both tried to go swim on the pool, and it hadn't affected him this much. There was just something... sensual about it? Was that a normal thought to have? Or was the confession affecting him more than he expected?

"But you look great in it Lance, and I bet that Keith agrees." Pidge mentioning him broke his line of thought.

He raised his eyes to stare at Lance and found him also staring at him. Keith knew he was more than likely blushing, but what he hadn't expected was to find Lance color changing to a soft red. _H _e is probably just embarrassed__.

Cutting their weird moment off, Lance looked around the room to avoid Keith gaze, only stopping when he found Allura, who made him squeal in delight. "Princess! I see we match-" Keith tuned off that conversation, tired of 'Lance hitting on the Princess Shenanigans' and maybe a bit jealous of them.

Fortunately for him Shiro raised his voice cutting all the conversations off. "Team, let's go we don't want to keep our hosts waiting."

 

Shiro obviously didn't count with the amount of people that would appear at the party and Lance efforts to stay away from Keith when he suggested that they should talk that night.

Keith wasn't especially interested in the party, he spent his time chit chatting the few aliens that came up to him answering their question in the most friendly manner he could. He learned that apparently the whole deal with 'Your secret is safe with us' was something they took very seriously because when one asked him about 'what a crush was' there were immediately five dhakians shutting him up.  He found it somewhat amusing.

Sometimes Hunk would come and keep him company while he ate some of foods the dhakians provided.  He wondered if he kept him company out of pity or because he was next to the food court, knowing Hunk it was most likely both.

From the distance, he saw Lance flirt with aliens, as usual, those around him seemed to be constantly laughing and Keith couldn't help but smile a little.

Then suddenly, the mood shifted, the happy music changed to something slower and aliens were slow dancing. He was pleasantly surprised when he realized galras were dancing with other aliens, if these aliens who were hiding themselves from war could still find it in themselves to trust galra, he thought that his team could do the same. He really hoped so.

He looked around looking for said team and found himself looking at Lance. Following the previous line of thought he wondered how Lance would react about him being part galra. Even with all their differences and difficulties he trusted Lance, and a part of him wanted to tell him the truth about the trial, maybe to make up for the half baked confession.

He kept musing that idea until he realized Lance was walking over to him, for one single second Keith let himself think about the possibility of Lance asking him for a dance, then he pushed the thought away. Instead he saw him grab a drink from the nearby table and lean against the wall next to Keith.

Lance chug down the whole drink without sparing him a look or a word, even though they were simply a few inches apart and their uncovered shoulders were almost touching.

When he finished drinking he finally looked at Keith, no emotion on his voice. "Tomorrow we talk after breakfast."

Reluctantly, Keith nodded, not sure of what was the right thing to say.  

Lance nodded back, seeming somewhat please with himself. "Okay, great." Then he pushed against the wall and walked away with a wave and a goodbye.  "See ya tomorrow, Keith."


	3. On the Blue Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They talk about feelings and some more stuff happens.

It was late, or at least it felt like it was, with the sky turned dark blue and hundreds of small, white, shinning stars making a beautiful scenery that Keith couldn't fully appreciate. His two hour power nap could only keep him awake for so long.  They had finally been freed from the people of Dhaki along with their festivities and were able to return to the castle to finally rest.

Keith was exhausted yet his mind couldn't help but wander as he thought about what the next day would have in store for him. He knew that he needed to fix things with Lance one way or another, he just had no idea of how to do that.

The most simple answer seemed to be telling the truth. That could go only two ways, either Lance would hate him, which would only make things worse, or he wouldn't, and possibly understand the situation like Shiro.

As he stared at the ceiling of his bedroom, he wondered which one was more likely, thinking about how Lance felt about the galra, and then he just thought about Lance, about the feelings he had for him.

When he became too tired to think, he fell into another dreamless sleep.

               

When Keith woke up without any alarms going off, it felt somewhat strange. They hadn't been able to sleep for as long as they wanted for a long time. It felt refreshing, a buzzing he hadn't been aware that existed was finally gone and it was easier to think.

He then realized he had no idea if he should wear normal clothes or the dhakian chiton; Keith also realized that he had no idea what time it was and feared he might have overslept, so grabbing his jacket he left his room, making his way for the dining room to look for someone.

Thankfully, everyone from the team was there, apart from Allura and Coran. They were eating what Keith recognized as dhakian food from the party of the day before and chatting cheerfully, everyone looked as well rested as he felt. The conversations stopped as he entered.

"Good morning, Keith." Shiro said from his seat.

"Technically, I think it's almost afternoon here, their days are shorter than ours and we slept more than usual." Pidge corrected.

"And we deserved that sleep, another day like that and I would have passed out during a mission." Hunk said while stretching his arms.

Lance laughed besides Hunk. "You kind of already did that on the last mission buddy."

Not really saying anything, Keith made his way around the table and sat on the only empty seat left, which happened to be the one next to Lance, and grabbed one of the blue looking fruits and ate it in silence.

Once he was almost finished with it Shiro was standing up and directing his attention to all of them. "Okay team so here is the plan for today: in about an hour we are leaving to meet with the Council so I need you all to go change clothes, the people of the Blade of Marmora will be joining us and we are going to start planning our attack against the Galra Empire."

As Shiro finished explaining Lance suddenly groaned, startling Keith. "But Shirooo, I was going to go walk around and go sightseeing."

"Lance be serious." Shiro said with a sigh.

"I was even going to bring Keith with me." Lance added, ignoring Shiro previous statement.

Shiro blinked in surprise and stared at Keith in reply to which Keith replied with a small nod in confirmation.

"I- okay." Shiro agreed, obviously lost for a second. Then he blinked again and focused his attention of Hunk and Pidge instead. "You two meet me in an hour then." With that said Shiro left the room.

"This isn't fair. While you two go on a date, I need to sit through a boring meeting." Pidge complained while they took another bite on their food.

"Tough luck, Pidge." Lance said with a smirk. Keith tried his best to not think about how Lance didn't deny the date part.

Finishing eating the fruit, Keith stood up and Lance looked over to him. "Where are you going?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.           

"If we are going outside we should change clothes, right?"

"Ah right, I forgot about that." He sounded displeased but stood up too and both walked together in  awkward silence. When they reached their rooms Lance spoke up. "Meet you in front of the Castle?" Keith nodded in response.

 

They end up at the outskirts of the town, which was surrounded by huge blue trees, with teal wood and navy leaves. The ground was made of white and gray rocks, with a path of black ones they followed in silence until they reached a clearing with some boulder-like benches. Keith sat down while Lance kept staring at the trees.

"It kinda reminds me of home." Lance said as he grabbed one of the heart-shaped leaf from the ground.

Keith couldn't exactly agree with the statement, he had spent most of his life in the desert, but he replied with a smile either way.

A few seconds later Lance was sitting beside him, his leg was shaking slightly, a nervous habit of his. "So I guess we should talk."

"I guess we should." Keith agreed, trying to not sound nervous, but doing a poor job at it.

"Why do you like me?" Was Lance's first question, it was unexpected and upfront.

He didn't want to reply, staring at his feet he began to protest. "Lance, I don't want-"

"Why?" Lance interrupted and insisted on the question once more.

Raising his gaze to Lance, Keith saw that he was serious, but at the same time there was some type of hesitation behind those eyes that forced Keith to comply.

Taking a deep breath, Keith took a look back at his own memories. "I guess I just do. I- I have been aware of my preferences for a while-"

"Towards men?" Lance interrupted with a frown. Keith shot him a look that must have sent the message across. "Right I won't interrupt."

"So uh right, the first time you caught my eye was at the Garrison, you were attractive but I never really planned on talking to you. Also sometimes I caught you looking at me looking disgusted so I knew I had no chances." Lance was looking at him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk and Keith couldn't handle stare at him anymore so he stared at the trees instead.

"Yeah, you are probably aware you are attractive. I bet a lot of people tell you that anyway so you don't need me to. So then we met again and at first I didn't really like you because not only were you dedicated to being an asshole to me but you were also the pilot of the Blue Lion. Then that really didn't matter when I met Red but you kept being so infuriating and kept riling me up and honestly? I knew I could just ignore the stuff you said but I kind of wanted to reply back?" He took a look at Lance to see if he was still paying attention, which he was, and Keith processed all the embarrassing stuff he had said and started to feel the temperature rising and looked away.

Staggering, he kept going. "S- so, Anyway- uh that doesn't really answer your question does it? But what I like is the way you obviously care about everyone at the point you sometimes decide to put yourself at risk for others? Honestly that part of you is also a bit infuriating because it leaves us extremely worried. Also I might have noticed how you felt about being left behind but I always assumed that you wouldn't want my help so..." He trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence anymore.

 He looked at Lance who was looking at him thoughtfully, and it was making Keith's heart run a bit faster. Breaking the silence, Lance spoke up. "So you like me because I am pretty and I am nice."

"I- no- yes- I mean-" Keith stumbled upon words and frowned. He didn't want his feelings to be considered something so trivial and plain as that. "I mean I like you because you are you."

Lance stared at him in surprise for a second before burying his face in his hands and making what sounded like a groan. "I kind of want to punch you right now." His words were muffled by his hands.

"Then why don't you?" Keith said with a smile, that Lance couldn't see, as he remembering it had been a while since he had went to the training deck.

"I am not that big of an asshole." Lance replied back, still hiding his face.

"What if we make it a wrestling contest?"

Lance took a moment to react to his words before looking up and gasping in fake surprise. "You are trying to trick me into training with you!" He said, pretending to be offended.

"You don't want to then?" Keith was still smiling, he couldn't really help it. "I will even give you an handicap, I'm just going to use one hand."

"A handicap?" Now Lance was smiling too and Keith heart skipped a beat. "Oh, you are on! I will show you, by the end you will be using your two hands and regretting underestimating me!"

"Prove me wrong then."

The match wasn't really as much as wrestling as it was a fist fight, with one hand behind his back Keith didn't have many options apart from focusing on defense. He didn't want to attack Lance anyway.

Lance started attacking and Keith did his best to dodge most of blows, they moved together at a rhythm established without words, they were stuck in a weird dance and Keith felt himself lose track of time.

At some point he realized it was becoming harder to inhale and noticed the pressure on his muscles, he smiled to himself. He also noticed how Lance's own breathing was becoming ragged and the drops of sweat forming in his forehead, and then he took a quick glance at Lance in his chiton and that one second of distraction had been enough for Lance to finally be able to get a punch through.

He lost his footing and took two steps back, the punch had carried more force than he expected, it stung a bit and he felt a metallic taste fill his mouth, probably a split lip. He cleared his head to look at Lance again who looked somewhat displeased. "You totally let me have that one."

"No, I wish I had though."

"Really?" He asked, suspicious. When Keith nodded, Lance threw himself on the ground, spread like a star. His chest went up and down along with his quick breathing "Then that's it! I am done!" He paused for a second to take deep breaths, meanwhile Keith decided to lay down next to him. "Shame I didn't get you to use both hands though."

"Your could always try another time." Keith said.

Lance laughed. "You just want a sparring partner."

"Possibly."

There was a moment of silence, while they looked at the sky and kept trying to regain control of their breathing, Keith thought he could have gone for a little longer, not feeling as tired as usual.

Eventually, Lance spoke up."People don't usually tell me that by the way."

"What?" Keith tried to understand if he had missed anything in their conversation.

"That I am attractive." He simply replied.

Keith turned his head to the side to look at Lance with a questioning look. "What about the girls you flirt with?"

Waving a hand in the air, Lance dismissed that idea. "Most of them just giggle to make me feel better." He paused and looked over to Keith. "So... where does this leave us?"

Keith pondered the question, he had already told his answer to Shiro the day before but saying to Lance was different. "I was just planning on... ignoring it, pretend it never happened?" He said, hesitantly. Even though it was him suggesting, it still hurt. "I never planned on telling you about it in the first place."

"Never?" Lance didn't look convinced.

"Not really."  _It's easier than being rejected._ "I never expected you like me so I just thought it would be for the best if we pretended nothing happened but..." the words that Shiro had told him echoed,  _I don't think either of us know Lance enough to know how he is feeling._

"But?" Lance repeated.

"But I am not sure if that's what you want." Keith said in one breath in a fool's rush of courage.

"What I want? " Lance took a few seconds to process the words. " If I want to ignore it or not?"

He couldn't handle the topic anymore, raising up from lying down to a sitting position he turned to Lance and quickly changed the subject to something that didn't involve his crush on Lance. "Anyway I was thinking I could tell you my secret and that would be enough for you to trust me again."

Lance's expression said that he didn't really want to change topic but at the same time the mention of Keith's secret seemed equally interesting, he spoke as he raised to sit in front of Keith. "Your secret? The one you refused to tell on the trial?"

"Yes."

Carefully, Lance seemed to think through before talking. "And you want to tell me just so we can work as a team again or because you actually want me to know?"

The question was surprising. "I- I guess it's both?'

"Then I don't want to know." Lance replied simply, without hesitating. Before Keith could interject, he explaining his reasoning. "And before you say anything I want you to know that I trust you Keith. If we needed to form Voltron right now I am certain we would be able to do so. You don't need to worry."

"I- so this is it?" He questioned, trying to wrap his head around Lance's words. "Everything is just back to normal?" It felt too easy, too unsatisfying.

"I guess so."

It didn't feel like closure to him, Keith ran through his head all the things he had meant to say, he felt like something was missing. As Lance was starting to get up he remembered what it was. "Lance wait." He said softly, and Lance stopped. "I forgot to mention, I am not even sure if this matters coming from me but... I don't think you are replaceable."

Lance didn't react, just staring at him as if he expected him to keep talking, which he did. "I don't understand how you and Shiro think that someone can just  _replace_ you like that. You were chosen by Blue, Lance. I think you shouldn't forget that I spent months on those caves and she didn't answer to me once."

"There are dozens like me out there, I am not exactly special." Lance said with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"No but that's the thing: You are special. You are selfless and think it's normal to put others above you but that's not what most people do Lance. Most of us are selfish jerks like me." He stopped to take a deep breath and stare at Lance, he didn't look convinced. "Look it's not like I don't believe there is someone who can replace you as the blue paladin. I am sure there is, but that doesn't mean I, or anyone on our team, would want someone else other than you." He stopped to shrug and smile sheepishly. "Honestly by that logic any of us could be replaced, none of us are that special. There were other paladins before us, it's not like we are the only ones who ever piloted Voltron."

Lance broke eye contact, looking at the ground between them, his expression invisible. Unsure if he had said the right words Keith apologized. "I am sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear, but it's what I wanted to say."

"Thank you, Keith." Lance's voice cracked a bit.

"Just saying the truth." He replied smiling.

A moment passed and they got up and started making their way out of the forest, following the same path of black rocks as before. Just before they reached the city Lance stopped in his tracks."I have decided." Keith stopped too and looked at him in confusion. "Take me on a date, I will give you my answer then."

Blinking, Keith processed the words, his first instinct was to decline. "You don't need to-"  _hoping was painful_.

"I want to." He paused, staring at Keith, attentively. "Unless you really want me to pretend nothing happened?"

"I- I don't mind-" Keith said before thinking, he couldn't refuse Lance "-the date."  _Accept his kindness, for his sake._  "But I have no idea what to do."

Lance gave a short laugh, Keith didn't want him to stop. "Jeez, you are supposed to be the one asking me out and you want me to do all the planning?" He hummed while thinking. "How about here tonight? I want to see the stars here, I bet they look beautiful."

Keith nodded, it was better than anything he could come up with. Lance smiled radiantly in response "Great, now let's go find something to eat, exercising left me hungry."

 

While they searched for a place to eat they stumbled upon a street busier than others, walking closer they realized there was some of sort of commotion going on and people were gathering in a circle around it, watching it with curious eyes.

"You galra scum can't tell me what to do!" A girl's voice raised above the onlookers whispers. "I know your kind, you might be trying to pretend you are nice but you all will just betray us in the end!"

Keith tensed up at the words, they felt like a punch in the stomach and he felt like he had been stuck in a dream that had just shattered. Lance must have realized the way he froze because suddenly his hand was on his shoulder and was whispering to him in a calm, concerned voice "Are you okay?" He asked.

A trembling breath left his lips as he answers. "I'm fine, let's just leave."

Staring at Keith and then at the commotion ahead, Lance gave him a wicked smile, as if an idea had just come to mind. "But we wouldn't be paladins of Voltron if we didn't help these people, now would we?"

Before Keith could understand what he meant, Lance was pushing his way through the crowd and all he could do was shout "Lance, wait!" when it was too late.

He heard Lance speak while he pushed people aside to get a clear view. "Hello lovely lady, what's going on here?"

Now Keith could see clearly the source of the fuss. A female alien that didn't look either galra or dhakian stood in front of a galra. "None of your business." She answered bitterly.

Lance raised his hands as if trying to calm down an untamed beast. "Now, now, me and my buddy here, think that this is all pretty uncool and just want to help solve things, in a civilized manner."

"All I want is for her to pay for the food she stole." The galra boy said. He looked younger than the other galras Keith had met so far.

"I don't make business with galra. Galra killed my sister and I don't own them a single thing." She said crossing her arms.

Scratching his head Lance looked at the girl, confused. "Excuse me, I think you meant the Galra Empire, not just galra, because as far as I know those two aren't the same."

She laughed grimly. "They are all the same, they lie, betray and seek power."

"Well I am not sure if you noticed, but I am one of the paladins of Voltron, amazing I know." Lance smiled turned from friendly to somewhat threatening as he kept talking, and it was shocking to Keith, haven't seen Lance like this before. "And I will have you know, you are very wrong as the reason we are alive right now is because a galra saved our lives by scarifying himself."

The girl dismissed this idea with a roll of eyes.

"Don't want to take my word for it? Fine then, what if I get our leader that lost an arm to the Galra Empire and many other things that you don't have the rights to imagine. Yet, he is the one out of us that trusts the galra the most? Should we ask him what he thinks?" He switched expression again, showing pity to the girl. "I am sorry for your sister, I really am, but something  I learned lately was that you shouldn't judge someone based on their looks or race."

The girl expression had softened, she closed her eyes and sighed in resignation as she reached for her pocket and took out some weird looking metal pieces and shoved them into the boy's hands and walked away.

Lance walked up to Keith with a satisfied smile and before Keith could think he said honestly "Thank you."

"Nothing to thank me about, I just told her like it is" He shrugged.

As Lance started making his way through the streets and Keith looked at him from behind he thought about only one thing.

He wanted to tell him.

Keith wanted to tell Lance the truth.


	4. Under Shining Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A date happens? Keith isn't sure if he can call it one.

 

It took Keith and Lance an hour of walking around town to find a good place to eat; as if a weird twist of fate, the small store they ended up on was ran by the galra boy that Lance had helped.

The teen boy remembered them, talking in a friendly and excited manner, thanking Lance once again for his troubles and offered them a free meal, which they were thankful for, since they had none of this planet’s currency and hoped they could have used their status as a way to get food.

The white sun was starting to sink into the horizon by the time they finally approached the castle. The wind felt nice against Keith's skin under the sun's warmth, almost felt like a shame to not stay out a little longer to watch the sunset. As if reading his mind, Lance voiced these same thoughts when they were about to enter the castle. "Can't we stay out here a little longer?" The white sun's light made Lance look angelic, Keith felt his heart race faster, it was hard to deny him.

"We need to go find the others, we might have missed something important." He reasoned with a regretful sigh.

With a whine Lance followed him along the corridors, in quiet comfortable silence, until they reached the bridge where Shiro and Allura stood talking in front of the control panels. Seeing them enter, Allura gave Shiro a pat on the back, along with a giggle, and she left the room, only acknowledging their presence with a wink.

Shiro spent a couple minutes running them through what they missed from the meeting.  They had started sketching out a plan to defeat Zarkon, nothing complicated had been decided so far but it was apparently necessary for a small team to go on a supply run by the end of the week. Not much else had been decided as the strategists showed a big interest on the lions and their abilities, so the paladins ended up explaining the abilities they had unlocked thus far.

As soon as Shiro finished explaining and they finished voicing their questions; Shiro directed his attention to the both of them, staring apprehensively. "So..." He started, drifting off, as if hoping someone would finish the question for him, but with no such luck he continued. "did you two... solve things?"

Before Keith could reply, Lance was chuckling softly beside him. "Maybe..." He taunted. "Ask me again after tonight." Lance added with a wink. And without waiting for either of them to react he left the room in a heartbeat, his steps large.

Keith stared at the door, blinked once while processing the words, unbelievably slowly. He  felt his face heat up, realizing what Lance was implying. Staring at Shiro who was already looking at him, his own cheeks a bit flushed, embarrassed. "It's not what you think." Keith immediately defended.

As Shiro’s initial shock passed and he looked at Keith, rather amused.  "And what do I think?" Keith knew that it was just teasing but he felt his cheeks grow even hotter at the possible thoughts.  _Stupid Lance._ "Seriously though, what am I missing?" Shiro asked, on a new tone.

"I- we are going on a date. I guess?"  _Date had been the word Lance used, right? That's what it was, right?_

In the revelation, Shiro's eyes grew a bit wider but so did his smile. "What about the 'pretend nothing happened' plan?"

Keith crossed his arms, feeling like Shiro was able to see right through him. It wasn't an unusual feeling, he knew him better than anyone else but it also made it hard for him to talk sometimes. "He was the one who asked." Keith admitted.

He didn't look up from the ground as Shiro replied but his tone was soft. "I am happy for you." Shiro raised his flesh hand and placed it on his shoulder, making Keith look up, giving him a warm smile, that reminded Keith of his father.

A silence grew between them and Keith could hear the humming of the machines in the room, jumbling in with his thoughts.

Still unsure about accepting this reality of events, he spoke up, stumbling on his words, speaking before thinking. "I- somehow- I just think he’s probably being nice or maybe he’s messing with me?" He frowned in thought. "That sounds like something Lance would do right?"

"You think so?" Shiro asked with a scowl as he took his hand off Keith's shoulder.

The humming seemed to grow louder, his head was aching as he started to freak out. "I mean usually he is all about pretty alien looking girls? Would he even be interested in me?" His heart was drumming in his ears. "Is he bi?" He asked in a whispered breath.

Shiro shrugged. "I have no idea but Hunk might know?" A pause. "But hey, at least you have the alien part  going for you?" He mused. As Keith didn't react right away, Shiro laughed awkwardly. "Bad joke?"

The buzzing had gone quiet in his mind. Shutting down his small panic attack, the other matter at hand came in focus."I want to tell Lance." He confessed, softly. He looked for approval in Shiro's eyes. "Shouldn't I?"

He seemed to consider it for a moment. "You have to tell everyone one way or the other; especially because of the deal with the Blade of Marmora." With a wave of hand, he supplemented. "It's not bad that you start by telling Lance."

Staring at the ground, Keith mumbled with a small smile. "He stood up for a Galra back in town," he felt himself crash deeper into his crush as he recalled Lance's words, "there was some trouble with a girl... she was against the Galra being here, and Lance stopped her."

Shiro hummed in reply, looking softly at Keith with a understanding smile.

 

When they finally left the bridge and stood on the other side of the large door, Keith turned to Shiro one more time. "I think I am afraid of hearing his answer... about my feelings." He sighed, admitting it out loud just made his fears feel more real. "It was so much easier to just hide it."

"That's normal, it's normal to be afraid, Keith." Shiro replied sincerely.

"Then-"

Shiro cut him off. "You still can't avoid it though. You both will have to decide where exactly you stand to be able to move forward."

Keith bit his lip and looked away. He knew that Shiro was right.

 

Parting his way with Shiro, Keith went back to his room to take a short nap. Said nap went on for longer than expected as he was woken up by Hunk telling him to join them for dinner, to which he complied and followed. Thankfully he didn't need to go through the hassle of changing clothes since they were still leaving the castle later that night.

Entering the kitchen, Keith found his way to the seat next to Lance, who sent him a quick friendly smile. Keith felt relieved at how easy it was to smile back. Things are still good between them.

Shortly after Keith sat down, Pidge entered the room too, and their clothing didn't go by unnoticed. "Why are you two still on those awful clothes?"

Lance snickered and gave Keith a soft nudge with his elbow. "Hey, I think Pidge can't handle our handsome legs." He told him in a loud not subtle whisper.      

"Gross." Pidge replied, sticking their tongue out and making their way for their own seat.

The dinner carried on, peacefully and full of laughter.

 

The more they approached the outskirts of town and got closer to the forest, the more Keith couldn't believe his eyes. The night before he had thought it was his imagination when the horizon seemed to shining in blues, or it was part of this world’s atmosphere.  He hadn't expected the reason of that glow to be the trees. Their leaves were shinning softly in cyan and the light was pulsating like a gentle heartbeat, making it clear the trees were alive. 

Keith stole a glance of Lance, his heart skipped a beat as he took in Lance's profile. He contemplated the forest with big gleaming eyes, the cyan lights giving a new shade of blue to his eyes, the lights reflecting on his tanned skin, his neatly arranged hair, his slightly parted lips...

"It's beautiful." Lance murmured.

  _Just like you_. "It is." Keith agreed.

Lance smirked as looked over to him, with a proud grin. "Once again, Lance proves that he is the best at date planning. You are welcome." Keith chuckled and rolled his eyes in response.

Making their way through the path of white rocks, that now took a bluer appearance, they reached a crossroads, and took the opposite road they had taken that morning, reaching a different clearing.

It was organized the same way as the other, several bench-like rocks and a huge space to move around. However there was one significant difference, that made Keith stop in his tracks. There was a couple already there, one of them being a Galra, Keith noticed the purple skin, and they seemed distracted enough on each other while they made out to not notice them.

Turning to a new shade of red, Keith turned around swiftly and grabbed Lance’s hand and made his way back to the crossway.  "Hey! What's wrong?" Lance asked, clearly lost.

Keith didn't reply for a few seconds, trying to get his heart back in place. They were out of the clearing by the time he answered."There was a couple there."

"Ohhh." Was the only reply he got.

Reaching the same clearing they had sparred in, thankfully empty, Lance made his way to the center, their hands were still interlaced and so Keith was dragged along. In silence they stood there, Lance stared at the trees around them, while Keith divided his attention between them and Lance.

Suddenly he was being dragged down to the ground, as Lance dropped down to lay on the rocks,  staring up to the sky. His fall was soft, and he stared at Lance in surprise, who simply smiled before looking up to the stars."I always loved looking at the stars back on Earth."

Keith looked up too. "Me too." He recalled the lonely nights in the desert, when he let himself have a break from his searches. He remembered trying to map the sky in his notebook. Keith smiled thinking of watching the stars at the same time as Lance back on Earth.

Lance started talking again and Keith focused his attention on his words. "It just made me think about how vast the space is and how there are endless possibilities out there..." He paused, Keith felt the bittersweet meaning behind the words. "I loved them since I was a kid, I even begged my parents for paint that glows in the dark so I could paint some on the ceiling of my room."

"Did they let you?" He asked curiously, as he stared at Lance’s wide open eyes, he could see the stars reflected in them.

"At first they said no, but that was because they decided to paint the stars themselves for my birthday." He laughed, "I am pretty sure I didn't leave my room for a whole day after that."

Keith laughed too, as he pictured the image of a small Lance and a room of badly painted stars.

"That's when I started being interested in being a pilot. Part of the reason why I wanted to go to the Garrison, go out to space, where I am surrounded by the stars constantly... " He laughed, it was no longer genuine, it felt bitter."Now all I want is for a chance to go back to Earth for just a few seconds." He sighed and look away from the stars to stare at Keith. "Everything was so much more simple when I just hated you and you didn't remember m-" Cutting his own process of thought, Lance blinked. "Wait- no, you told me you did remember me at the garrison this morning... then why did you act like an ass when we rescued Shiro?"

Keith broke eye contact, awkwardly "I freaked out and it was the first thing I could come up with."

The laughing was true once again. "Oh god, you  _really_  are terrible at any type of quick thinking that doesn't involve fighting."

"Shut up."He said, pretending to be annoyed, to which Lance just laughed again while he looked up to the stars again. For a few more seconds Keith kept staring and before he could stop them, words that had been in his mind the whole night came out of his mouth "You didn't need to do this... the date."

Turning his head to the side, Lance raised an eyebrow in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Sitting up, Keith looked down at him. "I mean, are you just doing this out of pity or kindness, right?" The words felt bitter in his mouth, he didn't like saying them but it was easier than holding on to hopes.

Lance sat up quickly. "What-no! What would have made you think that?" He raised his voice in disbelief.

Keith started replying to the question in the same tone as before. "You are selfless and your reaction to my confession was to-" He paused, realizing the fact that Lance had just affirmed that they were indeed on a date. "Wait... no? So you mean you did want to go on a date? I thought you hated me?"

He huffed in amusement.  "That's not a nice thing to say on a date." Keith opened his mouth to reply, but came up with nothing. Lance talked for him "And do you really think I hate you? Even after what happened this morning? I would be hurt if so." He said, clearly worried.

Keith paused to think, even though the answer was clear if he thought back about his relationship with Lance. "...No."

Giving him sad puppy eyes, Lance pointed out. "You hesitated."

"You’re complicated alright?" Keith replied, exasperated. "One second we are having a bounding moment, the next you are denying it and acting like a jerk around me and it's infuriating." He gestured with his hands to the empty air between them.

"You still love me though." Lance said, playfully. Silence set in after those words. Lance seemed to realize what he had just said and was opening his mouth to speak. "Sor-"

Keith cut him off, mustering confidence to blurt out the words. "Yes, I do still love you." Lance eyes went wide, and he seemed to grow two shades darker. "Are you are blushing?" Keith found himself amused, it wasn't everyday he saw Lance be flustered, much less turning red. He felt himself grinning.

He pouted. "Shut up. It's not every day a pretty boy says he likes me."

"So I’m a pretty boy now." Keith grin grew wider. This was easily becoming one of his favorite conversations with Lance.

Grunting, Lance hid his face.

"I said this yesterday too, that I... like you. " Keith said more shyly. "Your reaction was way different though." _From crying to blushing there is a striking difference, a good one but still..._

"Right..." Lance looked at his own hands.

"Can I hear why?" He tried to ask as softly as he could.

"I don't want to." Lance admitted, fidgeting his thumbs, clearly nervous.

"Well... what if I tell you my secret first." Keith tried to say casually, however he could feel his hands starting to tremble.

"I told you that you don't need to tell me." They made eye contact, Lance held his own hands tighter "And I don't want it to be used as a bargaining chip either."

Closing his eyes, Keith replied in a single breathe. "I know, I thought about it and I do want to tell you."

"Okay..." Lance agreed, apprehensively.

Keith breathed in and out, gathering his thoughts, his hands, that were resting under his thighs, were resting on top of the fabric of the dress, he clenched the fabric, his knuckles turning white. His panicking must have been evident, as one of Lance's hands was suddenly on top of his, making him look up. "Lance?"

"Most people find this comforting, but I can stop if you want," He replied, softly, making circles with his thumb on top of Keith's hand.

It was warm, the human contact felt soothing and made him grounded. Keith shook his head, accepting the offer. While the touched helped, at the same time fear of being hated by Lance increased.

His feelings were still jumbled, and he lost track of time he spent lost in his thoughts until Lance spoke up. "I don't like being used."

The sentence didn't make sense but Keith felt like he was at fault for something and felt like he should apologize. "Uh? Sorr-"

Lance interrupted him. "I have decided I am going first, now shush, it's story time." Still taken aback, Keith nodded slowly in agreement. He cleared his throat and started talking "So when I was back in middle school, there was this one girl that I really liked... she was kinda like my first crush. She didn't really like me at first but then we ended up doing a pair project together and I took her to my house and we hit it off as friends... I was overjoyed for a month and we were great friends... then she confessed to me." He stopped, laughing resentfully. " I found out she did that to make my older brother jealous or some bullshit like that... it was one of the girls that hated her guts that told me, so I wanted to refuse it at first, but it was pretty obvious when I think about it."

"I’m sorry." Keith said when he thought the story was over. 

Lance shrugged, "she turned out to be a lesbian in high school so I survive by thinking that my brother is just that shitty of a boyfriend."

"Wow." He laughed.

Taking a deep breath, Lance kept talking. "But I guess that when you confessed... I just got the same vibes I did from when I was a kid. That I was once again being used as an excuse; and let's say that freaking poison drink didn't help my mood either. It's not exactly that I meant to reject you, except wow dick move not apologizing about using me."

"I’m sorry." Keith repeated, automatically.  

Lance offered a sheepish smile. "You already said that, I forgive you."

Silence sat between them. Staring into Lance's eyes, Keith observed the small stars reflected in his blue eyes along with that smile, he felt his heartbeat silence. Inhaling, he cleared his head and finally spoke.

"I’m Galra."

 

 

 

 


	5. Complicated Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback and a reaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV change to Lance⋆

_"Why?" Lance patience had ran out, his words came out more bitter than he intended. "Because you found out I am depressed or because you feel responsible? You didn't care how your stupid confession would make me feel before, don't pretend you care now."_

_He saw Keith eyes grow wider and his expression turning into guilt. Lance didn't regret his words, didn't want to regret them, so before he found himself wanting to apologize, he shook Keith's hand off him and walked inside his room, closing the door behind him._

It was hard to keep standing up, he found his legs shaking; not finding the strength to keep standing, he slumped his back against the door as he let himself slide down to the ground, raising his legs close to his chest and the back of his head against the door.

His head was a mess, the headaches were back and it felt like there were small needles pressing against his skull, it was hard to focus on a train of thought. They had always been a hassle to deal with; but in space it was worse than ever, there were no pills to help him, and being alone in a silent room with nothing to distract him made it even worse.

Thankfully, Pidge had brought headphones and an iPod along with them, and it had just about a little of everything, making it possible to find something soothing to help him, they were especially useful when he needed to fall asleep. Unfortunately for him, he currently didn't have the device, so his only option was to press his own cold hands against his forehead and inhale deeply.

He hummed a familiar lullaby to distract himself from thinking.

A couple of minutes passed like this, slowly and alone as his headache donned down enough so he could hear himself think again. The peaceful moment was interrupted by a knock on his door that echoed through the room. He opened his mouth to tell whoever it was, to go away, but as he opened his mouth a voice came through the other side. "It's Hunk."

He felt hesitant at first, considering his options. He liked being alone at times like this, however if anyone could help him, it would be his best friend. Cautiously, he stood up, going for the door. He realized his hand was shaking. He grabbed it with his other hand to stop it and took a deep breath.

Forcing himself to smile, Lance opened the door. Hunk had been waiting patiently on the other side. Concern was evident in his expression, though he smiled back as they made eye contact. "Hey, buddy." Lance greeted, moving back to give him space to enter the room.

"How are you?" Hunk asked.

Lance took in a sharp breath, the question was simple, yet he couldn't find it in himself to answer, he was trying his best to keep the feelings down in the pit of his stomach; but with one question and a safe presence in the room, it was making the feelings bubble. He exhaled, he was shaking again, tears wanted to form themselves but he forced them down. "Peachy." His voice cracked a bit and he cursed mentally.

There was pity in his eyes. Lance didn't want pity. "Come here." Hunk opened his arms.

He couldn't find it in him to say no, Hunk’s hugs were hard to refuse. He took a step closer and Hunk wrapped his strong arms around him. Lance placed his forehead on his shoulder, letting the arms fall heavy on his sides. Lance felt safe and warm, felt vulnerable and exposed,  felt tired and sad. The heavy weight of stress was pressing against his shoulders. The emotions wanted to burst and tear him apart. Before he knew it, silent tears were coming out, he bit down his lower lip as his chin trembled. He kept breathing in hiccups through his nose, his lungs ached. The buzzing in his head was back. He clenched his hands into fists as he buried his face deeper into Hunk's shoulder.

Eventually, his breath under his control again, his hiccups stopped and he was left with nothing but the calming circles that Hunk's palms were doing on his back.

As he pushed his head back up and pulled back, Hunk understood and let him go, giving him space. Lance looked away, rubbing out the traces of tears with his palm.

They both sat side by side on that bed, in silence. But that did not last as Hunk started to speak up. "Now, how are you really?"

"I don't know." He said with a shrug, looking forward to the wall and trying to avoid staring at Hunk. If he was to give what he was feeling a word, maybe empty was the right one.

Hunk hummed in thought,  "What if we go step by step?"

"Uh?" Curiosity made him look at his friend.

"How do you feel about the 'secret' you confessed?" It was obvious that his friend was trying to talk about the subject as casually as he could, but his voice betrayed him, concern was all over each word.

Lance looked away. "Don't want to talk about it." The truth was that he had meant what he said, he had nothing to add.

A sigh. "Can I talk about it then?'

"I-"  _wish you wouldn't_  "sure."

"I don't think you can be replaced." He said, the voice was strong yet soft, like Hunk. "You are important Lance, you are my best friend and I honestly wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, I would’ve probably given up by now. This life of fighting and putting ourselves at risk constantly isn't for me." He confessed. "But you are still fighting and so am I, because it's the right thing to do, and you are strong enough to put this before the stuff you really want to do. You are more important to the team than you think, you keep us together even when you are off banging your head against Keith's." The last remark had a slightly teasing tone to it that Lance couldn't help but snort at.

"Even if I was disposable, you would be too nice to say it to my face Hunk." The words were meant to be playful, but he knew Hunk could see the bitter meaning behind them.

"How dare you." Hunk's face turned into frown; Lance wasn't sure whether he was honestly offended or not until a second later a mischievous smile crept onto his mouth. "That's it, I am going to tickle you until you admit I’m right."

Lance hated the fact he was ticklish, even more he hated not being able to control his awful snorts while he laughed, he liked the feeling of control under his own emotions and body, thank you very much. He immediately raised his hands, gesturing Hunk to stop in his tracks. "Okay, okay, you’re right."

"Knew it." Hunk puffed his chest proudly. There was a beat of silence before they returned to a serious tone, "And, uh how you feel about the stuff with Keith?"

He stood silent, if it was out of stubbornness or if it was because he didn't know the answer would both be accurate guesses, the second one was slightly more likely.

"You liked him right?"

"Wa-!" Lance gagged in surprise. "Hunk, look," he gestured as if he was explaining a simple math problem to a child. "I said he was hot and pretty when I was drunk  _2 years_  ago and that was before I knew he was a jerk."

Hunk raised an eyebrow, amused. "But he isn't a jerk now, is he?"

Dropping his hands, Lance admitted defeat.  "I know."

"And do you like him?"

"I don't know." He admitted, biting down his lower lip.

Hunk knew him well enough to know when he was being serious, so he dropped the teasing tone. His friend placed his hand over his own, Hunk knew it calmed him down, he was the one had told him so. It was a gesture they did in Lance's family, that and he was a like who found comfort in human touch.

 "You aren't forced to like him just because he confessed, you know that right?" Hunk asked, honestly concerned. "You can refuse-"

Lance interrupted. "Yeah, yeah, I know." He said with a wave of his hand.

"I am being serious, if he really likes you, he wouldn't want you to force yourself to like him back. That would end up bad for both of you and the team."

"Yeah, you are right, but it's not that... I don't like him it's just... complicated." He scrambled to find the right words to describe what he felt. "I just never thought someone like Keith would like someone like me?" That sounded close enough.

Hunk frowned. "Don't say that like you are somehow inferior to him, you are both equally valuable members of this team."

"I- " _don't think so._  "...Okay."

"So how will you solve this then?" Hunk asked.

Lance considered his options for a brief moment, there weren't many options available. He went with the quickest and most efficient one. "I’ll talk with him and see how it goes."

 

Honestly, Lance didn't have much of a problem with Keith, with his confession. It was surprising for Keith to have feelings for him, of course, but it didn't make Lance trust him less or think poorly of him. However, he figured that the hot headed jerk wouldn't be able to concentrate to form Voltron if he didn't tell him that. After all, Lance got the impression that Keith was the guy that would end up affecting his every day because of one small problem.

So he did as planned, walked up to the guy, met up with him the next day and they talked. He hadn't planned to end up half exhausted on the ground but oh well, things had gone well enough, and he had actually been able to punch Keith, so it felt somewhat rewarding.

Something else that he hadn't planned was to ask Keith on a date, it wasn't that he was going to refuse Keith feelings, he had planned to post pone that idea for a  _long while_. However, after the words Keith had said,   _Lance wasn't special but he was needed_ ,  he felt his heart strings being pulled. Hunk words always meant a lot to him, but Hunk knew him, Hunk was too nice; Keith was... too honest to play nice. It felt sincere, and he decided to give it a shot.

Then they had gone to town, where the 'incident' happened. Lance wasn't much of a peacemaker himself but, well he could see it was bothering Keith... and he had his suspicions as to why that was. Anyway, it was his job as a paladin to solve conflicts, and they also had a reputation to maintain among the people of this planet, so he took a step and then another, not regretting the outcome.

 

The night came, with it came the beautiful white stars on the dark sky, with it came the glow surrounding the trees of this unfamiliar planet, with it came the moment of truth.

Like he said, he had his suspicions about why Keith had been so bothered with the earlier incident. He had started theories long ago, maybe even before that one silly dream he had where Keith had turned into a furry purple Galra, of course he would never tell anyone the contents of that dream but it was one of the things that made him start to wonder. He knew it was dumb to start building a theory after a dream, but then there were signs, small hints, Keith was like an open book and Lance analyzed it just as a time killer more than anything else.

Of course it was still very different between theorizing about it and for it to be the truth. Keith was truly Galra. He felt the urge to pinch his arm to make sure this wasn't yet another dream, but he fought against the idea, after all he was the type of person that never realized that dreams were dreams, so it wouldn't make sense.

Actually he just did nothing at all, he was dumbstruck, no words came out, not that he was trying to talk anyway, he didn't know what to say. However a part of his brain kept telling him that he should talk as the silence was extending for too long.

Keith was starting to become uncomfortable with the silence, it was obvious in his body language. He was looking away and Lance knew he had officially taken too long to answer when Keith started rambling. "Well I mean maybe not galra, just half galra? I’m not sure, I just feel like I must be because-"

Lance interrupted, he didn't want to hear the explanation, his mind was confused enough already as it was. "Slow down a second, is it just that?" Keith raised an eyebrow, he wasn't being clear enough. "Your secret, is just being galra?"

"I- uh-  yes?" Keith staggered, while raising a hand to scratch the back of his neck.

"That's it?!" he repeated with more emphasis.

Keith was starting to look nervous under the pressure, Lance squeezed his hand, that was still under his own. He needed to remind him he was still there. "Yes." Keith said, looking down.

Lance breathed in and out, and prayed his word skills wouldn't go failing on him. And so he started to talk, as casually as he could, he needed the mood of this conversation to be turned around. "Then why are you freaking out? I mean it just sounds like you are trying to one up me again." He paused, thinking briefly on his words, before he started waving his free hand as he spoke "Isn't being the best pilot and most attractive paladin enough for you? Well, damn now you are also part alien too?!"Lance could only hope that had sounded like a compliment. "Well I will have you know that I am pretty sure my great great great grandmother was born in china so I am part chinese but I don't go bragging about how I have different races in my blood, do I?" He had the impression his words were becoming too fast, maybe he was slightly panicking,  _maybe_ , he didn't want to mess this up "You always gotta be special don't you? Well you are but not all that much, because you know after years and years of evolution-"

Keith cut him off "Lance-"

He wasn't confident enough to stop now, he hadn't really said what he thought "-so basically what I am saying is that being galra isn't that big of a deal, I mean-"

"Thank you." That made the trick to shut him up.

He blinked, and smirked as he kept staring at Keith. He raised an eyebrow "For what? I am just saying the truth here, you know, you keep making yourself look cooler than all of us but you are just a paladin-"

"I'm being serious, Lance" He was looking slightly annoyed now.

"I- no problem, I kind of suspected already." He said, laughing nervously.

Keith eyes opened in surprise "You did?"

"I just had my suspicions, it was because of a- uh a few silly things," he wouldn't mention the dream. " like when we went on a mission together and you could work with galra tech just by touching it and uh like by," he looked away, hoping he wouldn't start blushing "looking at you too much? I noticed the fact you had the insignia on your dagger when you weren't looking, sorry."

Keith looked at him expressionless, Lance realized that it might be fear. "You don't need to worry, I never bothered anyone else with this."

"No- uh- thanks for not telling anyone but you... really are smart." Keith slowly said, Lance laughed. "I’m not kidding, Lance,  you’re one of smartest people on the team even if you try to not act like it." He wondered if he was imagining the shade of red creeping under Keith eyes "I, uh, don't think the blue lion couldn't have found a better paladin."

Lance smirked. "Yea I know, I’m pretty awesome."

Keith chuckled at that, and his heart fluttered a bit, why the hell did the pretty guy also have a pretty laugh. "So it's not weird or anything?" Keith asked, nervously. "Be honest."

"Hmm, maybe a bit weird?" He grinned. "I mean, I can't believe one of your parents was a  _furry."_

" _Lance._ " Keith made a noise close to what he would call a wine, it was kind of cute.

This was fun so why should Lance stop there. "Which one was it? Mom? Dad?"

"I never met my mother, my dad was human though." Lance laughed at the fact Keith answered him seriously, realizing this Keith face palmed. " _Why am I answering._ "

"Cool cool. Strong Furry Mom." His cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling. Another idea came into his mind and he gasped. "Soooo are you going to get purple skin? And cat ears?!"

"I don't know? I don't think so?"

"You don't sound sure." He raised an eyebrow, amused.

He frowned, looking at him disgusted. "That's because I’m not and I hate you for making me think of this."

"Aww, c'monnn I bet you would look cute with them." Lance pouted, childishly. "When you’re human you just look hot, it's not fair."

Keith stared at him wide eyed as his face started turning the color of his Lion, the sight took him by surprise once again as he choked in air. Lance sputtered in a mix of embarrassment and surprise, unable to form actual words until he was able to say "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything?"

"Yeah well uh, don't then,"  _God will you stop looking cute and hot at the same time_ , Lance needed a new discussion topic that didn't involve thinking about Keith’s appearance as soon as possible. "So uhhhh, how about the rest of the team? I’m not the only one who knows, right?"

"Yeah, uh, Shiro knows too, he was there when I found out, at the Blade of Marmora." He paused in silence, Lance realized there was more to that story but didn't pry and waited. "I need to tell the rest of the team eventually."

"Yeah, that does sound like a good idea. No rush though? I mean maybe it would be of help for the mission, since you can interact with galra tech but it could also cause some conflict teamwork wise," realizing the way his words could be interpreted he quickly corrected himself.  "Not that I don't think that the others won't be okay with it! Well I don't know about Pidge and Allura, but I think they are smarter than letting their perspective of you change because of a parent you don't even know."

Lance sighed mentally as Keith offered a soft smile. "Thanks, that uh, means a lot, but yeah I do have to tell them before the mission, the Blade won't work with us if I don't."

"Wait what?!" Lance accidently raised his voice in shock, fortunately they were still alone.

Keith averted his gaze as he explained. "They value a lot the trust and loyalty in teams, especially for us, since Voltron can only be formed if we are in sync."

"To the quiznack with them! This is our team, who gives them the right to say what we should and shouldn't share between us? We already have Allura for that." He complained, it's not that he didn't understand what the Blade meant, but couldn't they have a bit more of a heart?

Keith laughed, the sound reminded him of a music box, Lance was glad to hear it. "Well, do you not mind telling the team?"

"I think they should know, it's important like you said, and it could be useful." He smiled as he said this, but Lance knew he was afraid, who wouldn't be?

"Well I will be there if you ever need me, and if any of them give you shit for something you didn't decide yourself I will be there to give them a piece of my mind." Their hands were still connected, and to prove his point he gave a gentle squeeze on Keith's hand.

"Thanks Lance."

 


	6. Two Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late night talks between the two complicated boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--- used for character POV change

"Thanks Lance."

Lance looked away, laughing awkwardly. "Look, like I said it's no problem. I'm just saying the truth here, you don't need to do this alone." He stared back at Keith, who hadn't moved his gaze, and added with a smile. "We’re a team."

Silence set in between them. Not because of a lack of an answer, Lance could see Keith’s expression change, as if he wanted to say something but didn't know how to put it into words. Patiently, he waited, looking up at the white dots in the sky. He really missed his little sister, she loved to point out constellations, and he loved to hear about them, but now he could barely recall them. Well he couldn't recognize them here either, they were completely new stars, Lance realized.

At some point Keith finally spoke up. "I realize you don't hate me... but-"as he paused, Lance looked from the corner of his eye to steal a peak at Keith, who had his eyes narrowed and was struggling with words. It was amusing to watch, really. "I'm sorry anyway."

Lance felt at a loss in the conversation. Keith had already apologized, and Lance had already forgiven him, and now after hearing his reasons, Lance couldn't find it in himself to censor him for his decision. So he wondered, "What are you apologizing for?"

"I really don't want you to force yourself into this." He said as he looked down, Lance followed his gaze and realized he was staring at their interlaced hands.

Lanced chuckled, fidgeting with the edge of his clothes between his fingers. He realized this was his cue to tell Keith his answer. He didn't feel ready. He felt himself blush, and his heart hammer under the pressure. He was worried that Keith could feel the sweat forming in his palm. He stuttered and rambled "If you- uh, don't mind answering, what was going through your mind when you- uh, when you confessed?"

Keith bit his lip before replying, maybe he was just as nervous about this as Lance, "Actually, I was... relieved I didn't say anything else. I thought that, this could be just something for you to make fun of." Lance stared, in disbelief, Keith saw that. "It's just that, you looked down and I thought that would help you? I mean I didn't really think, the words came out of my mouth before I was sure of what I was doing but-"

Lance interrupted him. " You would rather have me making fun of your feelings than saying that you're galra?" He almost couldn't believe it.

"I- yeah- pretty much." Keith admitted as he stared at a nearby rock.

"Do you really believe that the team will take it so badly?"

Keith exhaled, sounding tired. "I'm not sure okay?!" He exalted, raising his voice by accident. He lowered it afterwards . "I'm aware I keep fucking up lately."

Lance hummed in thought. "You don't though? Not really." Keith looked at him with disbelief. "Okay, so maybe you fuck up a bit from time to time" Lance admitted, waving his hand as he spoke. "But the amount of times you have helped clearly outweighs the fuck ups"  _unlike me_.

"Don't do that Lance." Keith spoke, his eyes and voice stern.

"What?" He blinked.

Keeping the same tone, Keith spoke. "Don't make it sound like you haven't helped the team either, you have, more times than I can count."

Raising his eyebrows, Lance blinked again. He stared at Keith, processing the words he had just said, and before he could help himself he was laughing. It started as a chuckle but as he kept thinking about his current situation the harder it was to keep it down and soon he was guffawing. It was hard to breathe, he felt some tears form and heard his laughs echo. He barely heard Keith’s obvious confusion. "What?" He asked.

Trying to collect himself Lance spoke again, still having trouble inhaling. "Sorry, sorry it's just- it's so weird to see you talk honestly to me." He raised his hand to brush away the tears. "It's nice…..weird, but nice."

"I could say the same to you." Lance looked up at Keith. He was looking away, his cheeks clearly blushed, with a hint of a smile in his face.

Lance felt butterflies flurry in his stomach, reminding him of the uncertainty of his feelings, how at loss he felt about him, about Keith. He fidgeted in place before speaking. "I guess I should give you my answer shouldn't I."

Keith stayed silent, slowly meeting his gaze.

"You're going to make me say it?"  He laughed drily, knowing full well that Keith knew what he was talking about and hadn't asked for a clarification either. Maybe he was just doing it for himself. "My answer to your confession, I said I would give it to you, tonight."

"Right, I know." He nodded slowly. "But you don't need to."

"You don't want to hear it?" Lance asked with a smile and a raised eyebrow.

Keith stumbled on his words. "Ah- uh- I'm- not sure."

"Me neither." He said in one breath, as quickly as he could. He saw that Keith was confused, not understanding what he meant, by instinct he grasped Keith’s hand a little harder, maybe looking for comfort himself, for an answer to his problems. "That's... my answer."

Lance closed his eyes briefly before explaining. "I'm not sure how I feel about you, it's not that I don't like you, it's just that... this is happening way too fast, or more like... too suddenly?  We are in the middle of a war against Zarkon and it's not that I even care that much about it, I mean I do- just-" He stopped his own nonsense, trying to understand where exactly he wanted to go with this. "I admire you, not just you, the whole team, you're all so amazing- what I mean is, I always figured that no one as amazing as that would ever look at me the way... you do."

Before Keith could open his mouth to protest. "Yeah I know I'm amazing from your perspective and all, I mean I know I am." He used his trademark smirk, "Basically…what I mean is that I can't really say I don't like you either, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to... love you either. I don't mean to leave you without an answer forever obviously! I will give you one, I swear."

Keith looked neither sad or happy, he looked a bit relieved if anything. "That's fine... like i said you don't need to give me one."

He laughed. "Because you were ready to die without never telling me, right?"

"Right." Keith agreed, with a slow smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"I swear I will give you one though, maybe not now or tomorrow, but just...give me a bit of time?" He paused, thinking. He considered his options, how this could possibly work for the both of them. He liked spending time with Keith, it was nice how they were slowly starting to understand each other, he thought. But he wasn't sure if it wasn't selfish on his part to do so. "Could we... do this again?  Hang out I mean, during this week?" He asked, cautiously.

"You want to keep hanging out with me?" Keith said in disbelief. Was it really that surprising someone like Lance enjoyed his company? Possibly.

"Why shouldn't I? It's been fun so far, maybe a bit  _too_  emotional though, we should try doing something more relaxing." He pondered their choices. "A shame they don't have bowling alley here, I would totally kick your butt."

"You wish." A devious smile crept onto his face.

Mirroring his smile, Lance said, "That's it, when we go back to earth we’re having a match "

"That's a promise?"

Keith face softened a bit as he asked the question, and it reminded Lance of his younger brothers when he told them he had a surprise for them. It surprised him but he smiled nonetheless. "Y-Yeah, sure."

Keith looked at the ground and mumbled to himself. "I guess that's something to look forward to, in going back to Earth."

His tone was bittersweet, Lance wished he knew how to reply to that but he had no idea what the right thing to say would be. He had figured that Keith had no home, he would feel like a hypocrite if he said anything. He stared silently at the stars.

The night went on for a while more, Lance wasn't sure for how long as he always found himself losing track of time when he stargazed. They spoke brief conversations, Lance starting most of them. He figured out a game for them to play, he asked a question and then Keith had to ask one before he could ask another. The game hadn't gone very far from just favorite colors and favorite music artists but Lance still found himself enjoying learning all these small new things about Keith.

After another long silence, they both figured that they should go back and rest for whatever the next day had in store for them. They made their way to the Castle, and then to their rooms, in comfortable silence, both entranced in their own thoughts as they heard distant sounds from the city folk.

Lance thought this might have been one of the best nights he had since he left Earth.

Approaching his room door, he looked back at Keith and waved him goodbye. "Good night, Keith."

"Goodnight Lance." He said with a small smile as he started walking towards his own, but turning around one more time as he reached it. "Oh-uh- and something else. Lance?"

"Hm?"

"You  _are_  pretty amazing." He said quickly before entering his room and shutting the door behind him, not giving Lance an opportunity to reply or react.

 

_Lance walked slowly towards the door of his house, he raised his hand over the door and nervously knocked on it. He felt anxious and afraid, but didn't know why._

_The door opened quickly and he was facing a set of wide eyed familiar kids, a small girl and boy excitedly pushed him forward, each one grabbing one of his arms. Before he knew it, he was being dragged through the house and to the backyard. His older brother and two older sisters sat at the wooden table, entranced in a discussion he couldn't hear well._

_When his older brother saw him and the kids approach he got up and walked over to them. Before Lance knew it they were playing football with the kids. He hadn't said a word yet, but he was happy, he felt safe and he felt at home._

_Then a sudden familiar smell reached him and he turned around to see his mother with a platter in her hands, smiling warmly at him. He felt his heart ache, and as he opened his mouth to speak, tears were streaming down his cheeks, a soundless cry._

_As a tear reached the ground, the night came, he was completely alone and everyone was gone but his small sister, who had wrapped herself around his leg. Lance saw fear clearly in her face, he couldn't recall ever seeing her like this before._

_Without a word he pried her away from his leg and raised her to his chest, holding her close, she wrapped her legs around him and hid her face in his shoulder. He walked towards their home, hoping to find someone._

_Opening the door, he found himself in hell, or what he imagined hell looked like. It was dark, the only light coming from the huge armored figures with glowing purple symbols on their weapons.  His family was being taken by them, he realized. His older brother was unconscious and being dragged, while his older sisters screamed helplessly, he couldn't see him but he heard the echoes of his small brother crying._

_Lance stood there, frozen in shock and fear, every part of him was screaming for him to help and protect them but he was just as afraid._

_What made him finally move had been the feeling of the weight around his arms leaving him. One of the creatures was prying his sister away from his arms and she was screaming as she tried to hold onto Lance._

_He pushed the figure away from them, and lowered his sister to the ground, who ran away before he told her anything. As he saw her go, the soldier punched him, making him take a few steps back. Then they were fighting, exchanging unsuccessful blows between them, something about this felt familiar to Lance._

_Being overpowered by the soldier, Lance ended up being sent to the ground, trying to find something to hold onto, he ended up taking the soldier’s helmet down with him, the soldier  stumbled forward and fell on his knees above him._

_With the helmet in his hand, Lance had accidently unmasked the soldier. Both of them were now staring at each other in silence. It took Lance a while to understand he recognized the purple skinned and yellow eyed creature with big furry ears on top of him._

_"Keith?" Lance finally spoke, in disbelief and horror._

_Keith grinned, he had sharp teeth. "You were too late, Lance."_

_His hands were around Lance throat and he couldn't breathe._

 

Lance woke up gasping for air, his vision blurred which made him dizzy, along with the ringing noise in his ears. Long story short he felt like shit at that moment. There were tears still forming in his eyes and dry tears on his cheeks. His feelings were a mess swirling inside him and it felt even harder to breathe.

As the pressure kept rising in the room he hopped out of bed and was walking out, as fast as he could. He didn't bother changing or checking for the time, he knew it was still deep in the night and everyone was most likely asleep. He didn't know where he was running to.

\---

Keith couldn't sleep, he didn't have a clear reason as to why he couldn't, he was tired, but useless thoughts kept him awake. Thoughts of Earth, thoughts of being galra, thoughts of... Lance, of how Lance spoke to him and how he smiled, and how he had laughed...

The more he tried to shut down these thoughts the harder it was to ignore them and fall asleep.  He wasn't sure if he had already dozed off a few times or not but he was tired of staying in one place letting his thoughts control him. He supposed that maybe, a walk would help get him tired enough to try to sleep again. He walked out of his room still in his pajamas.

He walked around the castle with no real destination.

Keith was surprised to find out he wasn't the only one awake when he reached the Bridge. Lance sat at the very end of the room, also still in his blue pajamas, coiled on himself as he held his legs close. Their gaze met as Lance look back, having heard the door opening.

"Us meeting these many times on one day surely can't be a good thing." Lance said, his voice becoming louder on the empty room.

"Truly the world must be ending." Keith replied, with a smile. " Also technically its already a new day." He started making his way towards Lance.

Lance snorted, and looked at Keith as he sat down beside him. "What are you doing up?"

"I'm... not sure. Couldn't fall asleep I guess." Keith flushed, he couldn't exactly tell Lance that it was thoughts about him that kept him awake.

"We have two dates and that's enough to keep you up at night? Fawning over how much you like me?" Even though Lance was right, his joking tone felt exaggerated and the way he chuckled at his own words sounded fake. "Wow, you are easy to please! Did you really never date anyone?"

Keith bit his lip and looked away, "shut up."

"I'm kiddiiing" He singsonged, tilting his head to the side with a forced smile. Then he looked at Keith and his expression turned as he realized he might have been right. "Wait, was it really?" He looked both guilty and surprised.

"It doesn't matter" Keith said with a shrug, as he looked at Lance, and noticed his eyes were red. "Are you... okay?"

The smile was back as soon as he asked. "Why shouldn't I be? I'm beautiful."

Keith frowned at the words, "You're joking even more than usual and you are awake in the middle of the night, sitting in a empty room, and most importantly,  you’re talking to me."

Lance raised an eyebrow, looking both amused and confused. "Was that an attempt at a joke in the end?"

"I'm tired." He grunted.

Lance sighed, closing his eyes. "Same." Then when he opened them again he was staring at Keith up and down, with an attentive gaze, "I've never seen you in your pajamas before, at this point I had assumed you slept with your clothes on."

"Yeah... I usually do." He confessed, which heard a heartfelt laugh from Lance, he smiled to as he tried to defend himself. "Look, that way I can be ready if we’re attacked, it just makes sense. But since we’re on a peaceful planet and they don't want us to engage in combat without their permission, I figured I could try this out for a change." He paused for a second and frowned "Also their clothing is weird and uncomfortable and I don't want to sleep in that."

Lance shrugged, "Eh, it's not so bad."

 _That's because you look pretty good  in anything._ Keith almost said. He figured he had said enough embarrassing things to last him a lifetime. "We should go to sleep, we have that trial Shiro spoke about tomorrow."

Lance nodded. "Yeah, we probably should."

They didn't move though. Lance kept on hugging his knees close and Keith still sat cross-legged. Both of them stared at the sky through the glass.

"Do you really never miss Earth?" Lance asked, softly.

"I... can't say I do."

"Don't you have any family that might miss you? Or friends?" Lance stared at him, wide eyed, the blue on his eyes seemed to shine. "...you don't need to answer if you don't want to." He added, probably knowing the answer to his question.

Keith didn't mind replying. "I haven't seen my father in years.  Shiro has been the only person I considered family for a while now... and since Shiro is here I’m fine."

"I’m sorry."

Keith smiled, "It's fine."

Lance smiled back, and his eyes opened a bit more, as if an idea had just popped into his head. "You know what? When we go back you should come meet my family."

"Really?" Keith replied in instant disbelief, but then raised his hand shyly to his neck. "I'm not that good around people." He admitted.

Lance chuckled. "Oh trust me, I know that, but you’ll be fine. When you live with five siblings your whole life, everyone there knows when someone needs some alone time. We actually reserved a spot in our backyard for that, since we have a shed that we almost never use, but it's all remodeled so it's actually pretty nice inside."

"I guess that wouldn't be so bad, I wouldn't want to bother you or your family though."

"Don't worry about it, if there is one thing my mom likes more than her family, it's having guests over.  My dad almost goes insane from the visits, he says, but I know he secretly likes them too."

Keith almost couldn't find the words to reply, everything sounded too good to be true, too unreal. Maybe he was dreaming, but he knew that the way Lance was smiling and the feelings he had as he saw it wasn't something his brain was able to replicate so wonderfully. He remembered their earlier conversation. "That's the second promise you have made today. About taking me to places on Earth."

"And I solemnly swear, I won't rest until I make both of them happen, especially kicking your ass in bowling, not even my bro wins against me." His smile dropped then, biting his lip, Lance buried his chin between his knees and avoided eye contact, he spoke again. "I- was dreaming about him, and well, the rest of my family. I just closed my eyes and suddenly I was back home and everything was just so normal and perfectly mundane... "

"But then I lost them, all of them. Galra appeared and they were taking them, I was useless and couldn't even move to help them. They were struggling and screaming and-" He stopped himself, his voice had cracked, and it was becoming shaky, Keith saw tears forming at the corner of his eyes. Lance held himself closer. "Th-they pried my little angel away from my arms and- and the way she screamed in terror, it- it was awful, and then I unmasked the galra and-" he stopped himself, "it- doesn't matter, I wasn’t able to do a thing and it just sucked."

Keith felt at loss of what to say. "I’m sorry Lance, it sucks you had to see that dream."

"Yeah... yeah, it does..."

"But I hope you know you wouldn't be useless, you’re brave and strong. I strongly believe you would be able to defeat all of them before they even touched a single person you care about." Keith deeply hoped that he was choosing the right words. "And after all, we are going to defeat the Galra Empire before they reach Earth, you don't have to worry."

"Yeah, I sure hope so." He replied looking back at Keith, eyes and nose puffy, from the crying, with a smile on his lips.  "Are you really awake because of me?"

"Among other things." Keith confessed, feeling the heat rise to his head. "We really should go back, their nights are shorter than ours and we need energy for tomorrow."

"Yeah I think talking with you has tired me enough." Lance said, smirking.

They both got up and started walking back to their rooms, the only sound was their footsteps through the empty hallways.

When they reached the rooms, Keith spoke. "Have sweet dreams."

Lance stared at him in surprise. "Well, that was an awkward thing for you to say. Don't say that again." However, afraid of having hurt his feelings, Lance quickly added. "I mean- you can say that if you want just-" He raised his hand to his face to massage his temples, groaning. "I'm not used to all this nice that we got going on between us, it's giving me a headache."

"If it makes you feel better, me neither." Keith said smiling. "Sweet dreams, Lance"

"Now you’re just doing it to annoy me." He said with a laugh. "You too, I wouldn't be too worried about the trial by the way, I bet we will kick ass, after all between that truth serum they gave us and fighting Zarkon, how hard could it be?"

 

As crowds kept swarming into the auditorium where they had stood two days before, Keith couldn't help but feel uneasy. They had yet to be given any information on the whatever trial they were about to go through and Keith wasn't a special fan of surprises. Even Lance who was standing beside him was looking quite nervous, if it was for the same reason or because the place was related with bad memories, Keith wasn't sure. He wished he could hold Lance's hand again, but it would be awkward and he wasn't sure if Lance would appreciate the thought.

A short while after Shirif, the dhakian leader, finally made her appearance. Keith couldn't help but feel a small hint of hostility for the creature after having made them go through that hell.

Shirif rose her hand and everyone went silent. "Paladins of Voltron! Without further wait I will now tell you what trial we prepared for you to prove your strength to us all. I may remind you the results of this trial will tell us whether or not we will cooperate in your mission to defeat Zarkon." Shirif paused, raising the tension in the room as everyone waited for the trial to be named. Clearing her throat she finally spoke. "The trial will consist on having each of you fighting your worst fears!"

Aliens were suddenly clapping, it didn't exactly feel like a cheer but more like they had acknowledged what had been said.

Keith didn't relate, he hadn't been able to process the actual words at all, like he had just been offered two puzzle pieces that didn't fit. That was until he heard Lance curse at his side.

"Oh hell no."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks to my beta reader [Hanna <3 ](http://deadly-punch.tumblr.com/)  
> Please do check out the [Voltron Zine](https://voltronfoodfanzine.tumblr.com/)  
> she worked on if you are interested!


	7. Another Trial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Each Paladin is asked to face their own personal hell, they aren't too happy with that idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick trigger warning:  
> This chapter is more heavy than all the previous ones, so if you have problems with mentions of corpses please feel free to tell me in the comments because I don't mind making a censored version of the chapter.

_"The trial will consist on having each of you fighting your worst fears!"_

_"Oh, hell no." Lance immediately said._

The more Lance thought about what this 'trial' could entail the more he could feel panic creeping in on him. "Nope, no way we’re doing this."

He felt Keith freezing up right next to him.  _This is bad._  Lance knew they couldn't go through this, he needed a way out somehow. He tried to concentrate, think of a way to persuade these people. He came up with nothing. "We already went through the other trial, do we really need to go through another one?"

Shirif looked confused at the question at first, then smiled and spoke. "The first one was simply part of our customs to know if you had what was necessary to enter our planet and respect our culture. This, however, is to know if you will be strong enough to fight the hardships you will be facing in the upcoming battle, as I said this in yesterday’s meeting." She explained, calmly and keeping eye contact with them. It made Lance shiver.

Keith seemed to snap out of his own world and turned his attention to their leader. "Shiro, please say something, you can't possibly agree with this."

He could see that even Shiro was nervous.  _Of course he is._  Lance wasn't exactly sure what they were going to put them through but if there was one of them that had a lot of things that would be hell to go through, it would most likely be Shiro.

Shiro coughed before speaking, trying to keep his composure. He took a step ahead, his head high. "Can't we ask you to reconsider this?" He made it look like a request but it sounded more like a plea.

Shirif smiled sadly, as if trying to mimic pity, Lance didn't buy it. "I am afraid not."

Hunk also took a step forward. Lance could see a drop of sweat forming on his forehead. "Excuse me, but we are not doing this in front of everyone, right?"

These words clicked  and Lance found himself staring at Keith, who stared back at him, they had thought about the same. Keith was also stepping up before Lance had the chance to say anything. Keith staggered his words, alarm was evident on his voice. He spoke turned to Shiro. "No, we can't-  _I_  can't. There must be another way."

Shirif spoke up again. "Of course we will all watch it, how would we know the results otherwise?" She paused, for no other reason except letting them process the situation they were in. "Do not worry, we will respect your privacy and it is forbidden to mention anything that occurs here, just like before."

Raising a hand before they could protest further, Shiro inhaled and replied. "We have respected your traditions thus far. We went through your first trial and changed the way we dress ourselves for your own comfort. Can't we ask for this one favor? Is there no other trial we can do to prove our worth?"

Shirif stayed silent, considering the proposal. She squinted, obviously not happy with this turn of events. "Alright, Shiro of the Black Lion. You shall come with me and the council, you will help us figure how we can make this acceptable for you, I believe we can find some arrangement that will leave you more comfortable. I say however that the trial cannot change, if you wish to not take part in it, we won't be able to cooperate any longer."

"Thank you." Shiro replied, and followed Shirif and the other members of the council out of the room.

Lance was still staring at the exit when someone grabbed his hand. He looked down to find Keith's hand intertwined with his, he gulped and tried to keep his heart from beating faster. "I can't do this." Keith said, his voice low.  

Lance smiled sadly. He wished he could make the other feel safer. "Me neither, I already lived my worst fears tonight and I really don't want to go through that again." Keith smiled back, "We’ll get through this I swear."

They both knew what Keith was afraid of. People, more particularly, their friends, finding out about his Galra lineage. Participating in this trial would end up with that being revealed to everyone, too suddenly.  _There was no way that could end well._

"Is this alright?" Keith asked cautiously, looking down to their interlaced hands. "I don't mean to-"

"Yeah, it's fine." Lance interrupted, giving a gentle squeeze to the other's hand to reinforce the statement.

"Aww, aren't you two just adorable." Pidge chirped behind them, a grin on their face.

"Hell yeah we are." Lance replied, sticking his tongue out. "And how are you holding up Pidge?" He asked concerned. He knew well that Pidge was too used to lying about how they felt.

They seemed to consider the question for a second. "Hmm, I already memorized the layout of this place and prepared about three different escape plans, so I’m doing pretty good."

Lance smiled, playing around was easier than thinking of what was to come. "I’ll join in if you go through with it."

"Same here." Keith added, their hands still together, Lance noticed.

Gasping, Pidge showed fake surprise. "Keith will join? Well that gives me at least two other plans considering your strength. Do you have a weapon with you?"

Keith grinned. "Two."

Pidge grinned back. "Perfect." Lance chuckled.

He saw Hunk get closer to them, deciding to join in on the conversation. He was still sweating. He laughed timidly. "I would like say that we shouldn't use violence but I would also rather not go through with this."

Pidge beamed up "Hunk is in too? Well at this point I think we’ll be able to use my ultimate escape plan."

"Oh and what's that?" Keith asked with a raised eyebrow, amused and curious.

Pidge got closer to them, as if about to tell a secret, they copied the movement and stood in a circle. In a low tone, they whispered. "Split up and make a run for it."

It took one second of sharing confused glances between them and the proud Pidge before they all burst out laughing. Lance could tell they were all forcing it, the sound was desperate, as if trying to put their energy into something else that wasn't panicking, but it wasn't all that fake. At least with this they knew they had each other's backs, that they could trust each other as a team, and that was something to be happy about.

From the corner of his eye he saw some people in the audience staring at them, curious of what was going on.

_Screw them._

When he finally managed to recover his breath, he spoke up. "I'm terrified." Lance admitted, trying to calm himself by focusing on Keith's hand.

Hunk moved closer to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "This isn't right." He complied. "I thought they were friendly, I mean, they’ve been welcoming, shared their knowledge and food with us but this place is seriously starting to give me the creeps."

"Yeah! And they even have all these Galra walking around and acting as if they belong." Pidge agreed, staring at the audience behind them. "It just doesn't feel right to me…how do we know they aren't spies?"

"I agree." Allura said, approaching them. "I just can't trust these people. I already have a hard time believing in The Blade of Marmora but this just doesn't feel right to me. Those that were exiled from their homes are content with living with Galra? I don't understand."

Lance held Keith more firmly, he wanted to argue, he really did, but he knew there was no point in doing so. A part of Lance felt guilty because he knew that if he didn't know any better he would be agreeing with Allura. For both of their sakes, he tried to change subject. "We just need to trust Shiro and hope they will change their mind about the trial."

"Guess so." Pidge shrugged.

"I am sorry to you all," Allura spoke again "if I was stronger we wouldn't need to be hiding like this and relying on these people."

Both Pidge and Hunk stared at him, waiting for him to reply and cheer up Allura. Lance knew it wasn't her fault her family had been taken away from her by the Empire, he knew it was stupid of him to be mad at her. But he was.

After noticing Lance's weird silence, Hunk rushed to speak instead "Princess, this isn't your fault."

"Yeah, we could never defeat Zarkon with just us, it was honestly foolish of us to think so. It was bound to end up like this." Pidge added.

One moment later, Shiro entered the room again, approaching them without any clear emotion. Shiro was always good at staying neutral. Lance wondered if it was good for the guy to have so much always pent up.

He cleared his throat before speaking. "Okay so I have good and bad news."

"Start with the bad news," Lance said, hastily "everyone always starts with the bad news, its common logic." The other's nodded in agreement.

"We can't cancel the trial or change it." Shire said with a sigh.

"And the good news?" Keith quickly asked, still hopeful. Lance was too.

"We won't have to go through it in front of an audience. It will just be the five of us and Shirif in the room." Shiro tried to remain impartial but it was obvious that he was disappointed.

They all whined and grunted in response, except Keith who stayed oddly silent  beside Lance, looking at the ground.

Shiro sighed. "Yeah, I’m just as happy as any of you are... Let's just try to get this over with, alright?"

Defeated and without a second choice, they dragged their feet as they followed Shirif, who had stayed by the entrance, patiently waiting for them.

 

The room where the trial was going to occur was small and dark. All walls, floor and ceiling were black and with very few blue lights on the corners of the room, allowing them to see. A black chair had been placed in the middle of the square room, on the right of it there was a table with the same weird looking cups that they had seen before, filled with a different blue colored substance.

Shirif informed them the trial would be organized with the same order as the previous time, which didn't make Pidge happy.

"Why do I have to be first again? You know, back in my middle school we reversed order each time to make things fair." They complained in a loud whisper when Shirif started walking towards the chair, leaving them behind.

"Though luck Pidge." Lance replied sheepishly, Pidge rolled their eyes. "The sooner it's over the better, right?" Lance said in an attempt at making things look better.

"Yeah sure." Pidge walked forward, sat on the chair and was handed the cup.

"Drink it all at once." Shirif instructed. "The effects will only last for about... three minutes, in your time I believe. Good luck."

Doing as told, soon there was nothing left on the cup. Pidge's head fell forward, and  soon the room went darker and images were being projected on the walls. They were all the same, like four television screens on the same channel. It seemed like they were watching from a person's eyes, Pidge eyes.

They were on a Galra ship. Pidge was running, their ragged breathes echoed in the room along with shouts of Galra and shooting. They passed several hallways, all identical, impossible to tell one apart from the other. Eventually, Pidge came to a stop on a hallway clearly different from the others, it had cells on both sides, aliens were screaming to get out, screaming for someone to free them before it was too late.

Pidge took out their Bayard and started breaking the locks, opening cell by cell.

Until they reached the last cell, it was already unlocked. Lance tensed up, he felt the others do too, everyone could tell what was about to happen and no one wanted to be right.

Taking a step inside, in front of Pidge eyes, on all the screens, appeared the bodies of their brother and father, Matthew Holt and Samuel Holt.

Lance wanted to throw up. He looked away as soon as the image showed up but it had been one second too late. The images has already been burned into the back of his mind. The images of the two lifeless bodies on the ground on a pool of blood, their eyes opened but not staring at anything, their skin pale.

He could hear Shiro’s sharp breaths beside him, Lance couldn't phantom how he was managing to keep himself together. _He knew these people._

Staring at the ground he could see Keith standing close by. Lance reached out for his hand. He felt pathetic about it, but all he wanted was to remind himself of what was real and what wasn't.

There was screaming, it was Pidge's voice. It reminded him of how Pidge was the youngest of the group. He tried his hardest to block the sound, trying to focus on something else, but there was nothing.

As if guessing his problem, Keith got closer and whispered. "Can I do anything?"

"Talk about something, anything." Lance begged, he could hear Pidge sobbing, and his chest hurt. He thought about his own family, about his nightmare, he felt like he was suffocating.

Keith took a split second to come up with something. "Do you... want to go back to the castle after this and go for a swim?"

He didn't look up to stare at Keith, he knew he would see the projections if he did, but still replied. "Do you really think we can find a way to swim in that?"

"I spoke to Coran and apparently it only works if we take the elevator. It was supposed to do something like reverse the gravity center of our bodies? Something like that, I didn't understand it too well." Keith explained.

"I guess that doesn't sound too bad then." The screams had stopped by then. Lance looked up and saw Keith smiling, it helped him relax a bit.

He looked back at the center of the room, where Pidge was now trying to stand up. Lance could see that they were shaking, and they were way paler than usual.

No one was able to say a word, except for Shirif who simply said "Next."

It was Hunk's turn and he was frozen in his place, and Lance couldn't blame him. He felt that if he tried to take a step forward he would end up tripping over his own feet. The trial was worse than anything he had imagined, and after Pidge he wanted to participate even less. Hunk proved to be stronger than him tough, and with robotic like movements he started moving towards the chair.

Soon the walls were lighting up again.

They were immediately surrounded by images of space. Hunk was on his Lion during the middle of a battle.

Lance frowned, something felt off.

It didn't take him or Hunk long to notice what it was, the Lion wasn't working, it had shut down and refusing to turn back online. It was also falling at high speed in the direction of a planet's surface... no, not a planet, it was Balmera X-95-Vox.

From his helmet communications, Hunk heard screaming, it was their own voices and it made Lance quiver. Lance heard himself say "We have to form Voltron!" before being cut off with a scream and in the distance he saw his own Lion explode. Lance felt himself stop breathing, he saw the other Lions follow the same fate one by one.

Keith gently squeezed his hand and Lance remembered to breathe again.  _It's not real._

With a loud bang, the Yellow Lion finally land-crashed on the Balmera.

They saw Hunk leave the Lion and stepping onto the surface. Lance stiffened as he saw an ocean of Balmeran corpses. Hunk fell on his knees, there was no screaming, simply silent crying, and the monitors became blurry.

Once again Lance couldn't stand to look at it anymore, turning his head away, it was hard to stomach seeing his best friend in so much pain when it wasn't even real.

He tried to regulate his breathing as he looked at the ground and concentrate on something else. The first thing that came to mind was Keith, who still held his hand. He remembered that maybe they should talk before Keith’s turn.

As Hunk switched with Shiro, Lance got closer to Keith and whispered. "Will you be okay? You know, will  _that_  show up?"

Keith bit his lip, he was clearly nervous. "I don't know, I don't think I’m afraid of much else at the moment."

Sympathetically, Lance bumped shoulders with him, smiling. "No matter what happens I’m by your side, alright?"

"Thank you." He said, smiling back.

When he looked back up Shiro simulation was starting.

At first it looked like a combination of Pidge's and Hunk's simulations, he was running down the purple hallways of a Galra ship. From the windows he saw all the Lions be destroyed. Through the projections, Lance could tell that Shiro was shaking and his vision was hazy.

He kept running until he reached a large room. It had windows in all walls, the vision of space and explosions clear. The room was completely empty for except one single figure that stood in the middle of it. Zarkon.

Shiro didn't hesitate a single second before diving right into a fight with him, Zarkon didn't hesitate either. For a few seconds that was all that they heard, the sound of metal against metal, both of them huffing and groaning in pain when some of the attacks hit their targets.

However, that didn't last long.

Before anyone understood what was happening the projection stopped in one place. Shiro didn't move for a while, then he looked down and everyone on the room saw it and gasped.

Lance looked away, trying to block the image of the sword that had impaled Shiro in the stomach from his mind, he tried to block the sound of dripping that echoed on the room, he tried to block  _everything._

But something made Lance look around the room again. A sound, the thuds of steps as Shirif ran towards Shiro collapsed body, Lance noticed that he was abnormally unmoving.  _No, it can't be._  He looked back to the projections to see that Shiro was on the ground, unmoving as a pool of blood formed around him.  _No no no._

Keith unconsciously took a step forward and Lance followed, their hands were still linked. 

Lance observed as the small alien quickly grabbed a cup from the table, her movements were messy and she almost let the cup fall. It contained a white liquid, different from the ones they had seen so far. With grit, Shirif placed it against Shiro lips and forced him to swallow it.

For a while everyone on the room was completely silent, observing the collapsed body.  Lance could hear his own heart beating and Keith breathing. The suspense was awful.

Shiro started gasping for air and time started moving again.

Lance was staring at Shirif and Keith had left him to run to Shiro's side, he would have done the same if it wasn't the fact he was currently busy staring daggers at Shirif.

"What was that for?!" Lance snapped.

Shirif kept herself high, pretending nothing had just happened. "Nothing to concern yourselves with. I shall explain it later. It's your turn next, Lance of the Blue Lion."

"And you want me to go next after what just happened to Shiro?" Lance didn't trust this one bit, Shiro had almost  _died_. "You forced his simulation to end didn't you?"

"I will explain later. Now if you would please step forward." Shirif said as she grabbed another cup.  Lance refused to move.

"I’m fine, Lance." Shiro called. Lance looked over to see him being supported by Keith, with his arm around Keith’s shoulder to be able to stand up. Shiro looked everything but fine.

Lance realized he had no choice. As he passed by Keith, he heard him mutter a "Good luck."

It was his turn to go through that awful nightmare and his suspicion was almost heavier than his fear,  _almost_. He drank the liquid in one gulp and felt his eyes drop and his head feel too heavy the second after.

 

Lance was on what remained of his hometown, there was screaming all around him, Galra soldiers were attacking his neighbors, his childhood friends, the nice woman on the fruit market that always threw him a free apple when he did the shopping instead of his mom.

Something told him he couldn't help those people, something forced his legs to move and start running. When Lance started crossing streets he realized he was going in the direction of his house. Part of him knew what was about to happen, the other part of him was in denial.

He turned the last corner and saw his house in flames. He couldn't move as the house suddenly collapsed on itself. He stepped forward, shaking. Walking in the middle of the flames without getting burnt.

Stepping over the rumble, Lance tried to search for his family, anyone breathing. For a while he couldn't spot a single person, and for a while he hoped, that they had all escaped. Then the smell of burnt meat reached him and his stomach turned.  

He held back tears, still hoping.  _They’re fine. Mom would have gotten everyone out in time._

Then he reached the bodies, their clothes recognizable enough to make Lance fall on his knees. He looked at the ground and screamed at the top of his lungs.

He screamed until he had to stop the breathe. He screamed loud enough to make his throat hurt. He screamed because he didn't know what else to do.

When he couldn't scream anymore he cried. Something was telling him it didn't make sense for him to cry, that there was nothing with his family, that there was no need to panic. He didn't understand why. At some point he even wanted to stop but something in him kept forcing him to scream and cry his lungs out.

Everything was suffocating him and he wanted everything to stop.

And it did.

 

Lance was back in his own body, and staring at the stares of pity and understanding from his team mates, who had also gone through their own personal hells just moments before. Except Keith, who just stared at him sadly, less pale and less traumatized than the others. For now.

"I’m never doing this again, not even if you promise us the ultimate weapon to defeat Zarkon." Lance barked at Shirif who replied with silence as he got up from the chair. He heard Pidge snort at his comment, and Lance felt a little better.

 When Keith passed by him he said "Good luck." As an answer Keith nodded.

Keith's simulation wasn't what either of them expected in the slightest. No, for some reason it was almost a repeat of scenarios from the previous simulations.

That didn't make the experience any more pleasant for anyone in the room.

 

Keith was holding Shiro's dead body in his arms. He blinked a few times and the projections started getting blurry as drops of water fell on top of Shiro's unmoving body.

Lance looked at Shiro, who was sitting on the ground and looking up at the screens. He looked to be in pain, both physically and mentally, he guessed. Lance could see he had his hands clenched into fists.

"Lance!" Keith's voice calling for his name made him look back up in surprise. Lance regretted it a second later.

Not aware when Keith had moved, Lance saw him running towards a familiar body on the ground, way too familiar. It was his own.

It felt wrong to see his own body like that. It looked weightless as Keith tried to hold onto him, like a marionette without strings. His face had lost color, his armor and hands were died red.

Lance looked away, staring at his intact stomach and hands, slowly bringing his hands to his stomach, making sure everything in him was still in the right place.

When he looked back up there was nothing to see, Keith had his eyes closed and the only sound they could hear were silent sobs and hiccups, that made Lance stomach turn with sadness and fury.

_This trial is the fucking worst._

And just like that, the simulation and the trial were over.

 

Shirif smiled widely to the five of them as Keith returned to his place besides Lance. He didn't say a word. "Congratulations Paladins of Voltron. You have passed. I believe that I owe you some explanations now."

"You believe right." Lance said bitterly.

Shirif joined her hands in front of her. "Very well, to start I should tell you that this test wasn't actually about facing your fears-"

"Say what now." Lance interrupted with a scowl.

"Please do not interrupt while I am speaking." The smile dropped for a brief second and it almost made Lance fear the small creature. His anger was still stronger than the fear though. He wasn't sure if he would ever be able to trust this planet after what they had been put through.

"This trial about dealing with loss. All we wanted to do was prepare you to the eventuality of losing the people you care about, after all we will be entering a battle against the biggest and worst Empire the galaxy has ever seen, and we are certainly bound to have casualties." She paused, letting the words sink in. Giving Lance a moment to think of his simulation being more than a simulation and becoming a reality. He felt himself choking. "This was simply a reminder, Paladins of Voltron. A simple act of kindness we offer to you, so you can be ready for battle."

 _Act of kindness?_ "You’re sick." Lance spit out the words.

Shirif tilted her head to the side in confusion. "I fear that I don't understand what you mean. My species can't get 'sick'."

"Whatever."

Then Keith spoke up. "What happened with Shiro’s simulation? You were panicking, what went wrong?"

"Shiro happened to go out of what was within our expectations. The keyword we inserted onto your brains was the feeling of Loss, but no one has ever turned this into the 'Loss of their own life' and we had not considered that variable. I must apologize in the behalf of our researchers."

"It's fine." Shiro said, weakly but with that fake smile he offered when he didn't want any more conflict.

Lance rolled his eyes. "If it's over can we go now?"

Shirif looked at all of them up and down, individually. She smiled 'kindly'. "Yes, we will have another meeting after you rest and eat, feel free to ask for anything you need."

 

The walk back to the castle had been in silence, Allura had joined them and asked about how the trial went but no one had the will to answer.

They went their own different ways without saying a word, all but Lance and Keith who just stayed close by each other, only separating for the brief moment it took them to get changed into their swimsuits.

 

On the elevator, Lance finally managed to get the will to hold a conversation again. "Sorry but did you want to be alone right now? After all that-"

"No, not really." Keith replied. "What about you?"

Lance chuckled. "If I went to be alone right now, I would end up crying." He wasn't sure at what point exactly between Keith's confession and their meeting in the middle of the night, had he grown so comfortable on revealing this type of stuff to Keith. He didn't complain though. It felt nice.

He could see Keith baffled at his honesty, and that made Lance grin.

"I actually prefer to be alone most of the time." Keith confessed.

Lance thought about what he knew of Keith. "Aren't you tired of being alone after all that time in the desert?" He hoped that didn't sound too insensitive.

"Yeah, I guess a bit, but I’m also used to it. Though having a team like this, people I can trust, it's-" 

Cutting him off mid sentence the elevator started shaking. Even though they weren't technically moving, Lance felt like he was on a rollercoaster. He tumbled to the side, crashing onto Keith, making them both fall to the ground.

Groaning from the impact Lance opened his eyes to find himself extremely close to Keith's face. Their forehead merely inches away. Flushing, he crawled away without a second thought.

"Sorry about that, uh guess that was the gravity changing thing you mentioned?" He laughed awkwardly, trying to not think about how Keith was blushing. "What was that you were saying?"

Keith blinked in confusion, apparently having lost his line of thought "What? Oh, I was just saying that it's nice being with you guys and work as a team, it's…weird. But it's nice."

 "Yeah, it is." Lance got up and offered a smile and a hand.

Taking his hand, Keith got up too. Lance tried to not dwell on fact of how accustomed he felt  to the contact when they held hands. "Thanks for uhm... listening to me." Keith said.

"Anytime, it's nice to see that mister cool also has feelings."

"Shut up." Keith said, sounding annoyed but smiling.

"You can't make me." Lance said, thinking clearly of ways that Keith could make him shut up. And quickly brushing those thoughts aside to stare at the pool and making a run for it, and throwing himself inside with a canon ball.

The water was nice, refreshing even. It made his head clearer and got himself rid of the noise in his head that threatened to create a headache. It made him feel like he was home. When he came back to the surface he had just about enough time to close his eyes before Keith was jumping right next to him and splashing him with water.

"That wasn't fair." He complained when Keith resurfaced.

"You never play fair."

"Well yeah but I’m Lance." Lance said with a smirk. Keith smiled, and it made him self-conscious about the fact that they were almost flirting. He decided to look away, at the crystal clear pool, and  an idea popped up. "Hey! I bet I can swim a lap faster than you."

"I don't think you can."

"Wanna bet?"

Keith frowned. "I don't think we can even have a race in this pool."

Lance knew exactly what to say to convince Keith. "Sounds like you’re scared to me."

"Fine, you’re on."  _Bingo._ "What are we betting?"

He hummed in thought. "If I win, you owe me a favor?"

"What  type favor?" Keith asked, raising an eyebrow.

Lance thought about things he could possibly want, and came up with nothing. "Still haven't figured it out."

"Alright." Keith replied with a sigh. "And if I win you’re my sparring partner tomorrow morning."

That idea took Lance by surprise, he didn't consider himself the best choice for sparring partner. "You like getting your ass kicked that much?"

"Actually, yeah. It was nice practicing with someone instead of a robot for once." Keith said, still smiling. For the own good of his heart, Lance wished he could make Keith stop smiling soon because otherwise he felt like he would go insane.

Lance felt his face heat up. He coughed uncomfortably. "I'm not going to let you win tough."

"We’ll see about that."

Lance moved to one of the ends of the pool, and Keith followed close behind. "I’ll let you count, and at three we start." He said as they got out of the pool and placed themselves at the edge.

"Alright, one...two...three!" Without wasting a beat they both jumped.

As Lance expected, he won.

Though it had been closer than he thought. A win was a win though. He was smirking as he waited for Keith, only to end up baffled as he faced a very soaked Keith looking at him as he came to the surface.  _Why do attractive people look so good when soaked? There should be a field in Science that studied this fact somewhere._

"You didn't cheat did you?" Keith asked.

"Nope, the only cheat was the fact that I didn't tell you I was part of a swim team in my home town, and I would spend most of my summer days in the pool at home,” He explained proudly.

"So much for a fair fight, uh?"

 _He had a point._ "You’re right, I suppose I could show you my kindness and accompany you tomorrow to your practice out of my goodwill."

Keith smiled,  _again_."Deal."

"Don't expect me to actually practice with you though."

He hummed in thought. "I think I might be able to convince you."

They then sat in silence close to each other, but not too close. The silence was nice for a while at least, it let Lance think about the shitty trial and come to terms with it, to call it just another bad dream. He wanted to ask Keith about how he felt with his but it felt too soon to bring it up. The image of his own bloodied body in Keith's arms was still too vivid.

At that moment the quiet felt too heavy and Lance wanted something else to think of, anything. "Do you have any plans for tomorrow?" He tried. "Apart from the practice I mean."

Keith blinked at him, then he looked back at the water, breathing deeply. "Yeah... I did."

He didn't expect that. "What are they?"

Sighing, Keith looked at Lance, keeping eye contact. "I was thinking of telling Hunk about me being Galra."

At that moment, as Lance looked at Keith and saw fear reflect in his eyes, he realized that this would be harder than he thought, and would possibly lead to the start of a series of messy complicated events.

That made Lance be afraid too; and it wasn't because he didn't trust his teammates, but because he had no idea what the end of all this would look like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank You So Much for the 4k hits and all the kudos!!! It means a lot to me that people are interested in this story.


	8. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have some bonding moments, and things might be going better than expected.

_"I was thinking of telling Hunk about me being Galra." Keith said while nervously biting at his lip._

He stared at Lance waiting for a reply, when none came he grew anxious. He spoke again. "Do you think it's a bad idea?"

Blinking, Lance came back to reality and spoke. "Telling Hunk? No, I think it's great! I mean it's Hunk we’re talking about, he’s been my best friend for ages and the guy is super understanding but..." He paused and raised his hand to his chin, lost in thought. "Are you thinking of telling just him? I mean like, tell everyone one by one?"

That was something Keith wasn't sure of himself. At first he had considered telling everyone together, he wouldn't have to repeat himself several times and it would all be over more quickly. Now he was wondering it would be easier if he told everyone individually, after all, that went pretty well with Lance. "I guess so?" He said unsure.

Lance nodded. "Alright, what do you plan on saying?"

"I guess….just tell them I’m galra and then answer any questions they have." He replied with a shrug. He thought back to the night before when he told Lance, how it went. "I bet they’ll have questions like you did, so I just plan on answering them. "

"Fair enough." He paused, looking at the water and then back at Keith with a frown. "I just realized I never asked you how you found this out." Lance said. "About you being Galra, how do you know?"

"Ah, well uh-" Keith recalled the events that had trespassed at the base, honestly it had all happened to suddenly he almost felt like it was a dream. "So they found out I carried one of their weapons, my, and they wanted to take it away and I refused, it was given to me and I... didn't want to let it go... but if I wanted to keep it I had to go through a trial where I fought their members... then I was put in a simulation and-" Keith cut himself, realizing that the explanation made almost no sense. He shrugged. "Doesn't matter, what happened was that at the end of it I apparently 'awoke' the blade and only those with galra blood can do it." He abridged, hoping that it made somewhat sense.

Lance looked at him dumbfounded, his lips slightly parted. "Wow okay, that's, that's something." He took another second to think, and then a scowl settled in. "Okay no, seriously what the hell? I am starting to get sick of all this 'trial' talk. Why can't people just trust us? We’re the Paladins of Voltron, when will that count for something?" He completed, sounding both distressed and irritated.

Keith shrugged, unsure himself.

Lance sighed, sinking a bit more into the water. "Well, let's just agree to not include that trial part  when we talk to the others, especially Allura. I’m pretty sure she is looking for any chance she can to break ties with the Blades."

Keith thought back to the few interactions between Allura and Kolivan, and Lance had a point. "Will this be enough?" Keith asked, hesitant.

"Keith, I already told you: you aren't your blood. And no matter what you do you can't predict how they’ll react. There’s no need to stress about it."

Keith tightened his lips, "I wish I could."

"Okay that's enough!" Lance exclaimed, in a sudden tone change. Raising himself from the water, Lance came closer to him and grabbed Keith by his cheeks. Keith blinked, lost in what was happening. "Hey, buddy look at me  _and_  listen. You’ll have to trust me, not only me but also all the others. We’re your family now. We’ve been on each other's heads  and went through hell over and over again together, we bonded as a team. Do you really think they will trust you less because of this? Because I don't."

Keith was speechless. He felt himself become dizzy, from the words Lance spoke, from his heart beating faster, from the sudden contact and possibly from having been on the water for too long. He knew this was his turn to speak but his brain couldn't process anything; but he let himself believe in Lance, at least for this moment, he would believe that people wouldn't turn around and leave him alone again. "I- okay."

At his reply, Lance smiled. It was radiant, the combination of the wet hair locks, the drops of water falling from his face, Keith felt himself  fall deeper and he wished Lance wasn't holding him because he felt like sinking and drowning. Keith could only hope that he wasn't blushing.

One moment later Lance let him go. With his wish granted he felt both relief and disappointment.

Still beaming, Lance asked. "Mind if I go swim for a bit?"

Keith strangled a quick. "Go ahead."

As Lance left, Keith let himself fall underwater. Cooling down, he tried to keep his heart under control. Before he had confessed on the trial it had been so easy to keep his cool.  _Why is it so hard now?_

Coming back up to breathe he watched as Lance swam a few laps around the pool. Sometimes he stayed underwater for a long period of time. Keith spaced out as he wondered what he could be thinking about.

"This feels like home." Lance said, as if reading his mind. He was floating close by, a smile on his face. "We should come here more often."

"We?" Keith instantly asked aloud.

Stopping to float to stand up and look at him, Lance replied. "I mean, only if you want to come with."

"I- Yeah sure, it is nice here." Keith agreed without a second thought. "Is the reason why this feels like home because you were on the swim team?"

Lance sat beside him again, "I guess so, I mean it's a pool, this is the most human place I've seen in the whole castle, it even smells of weird chemicals." With that remark Keith noticed that the air did smell of something similar to chlorine.

At the mentions of a  _home_ , Keith remembered Lance’s trial, that unlike the others had been on Earth. "Are you alright? About the trial?"

Lance sighed and suddenly his voice sounded five times more exhausted. "I’m just trying to convince myself that it was just another bad dream, just like the nightmare I had last night." He offered a weak grin. "I can try to pretend at least."

"But it was worse in the trial though." Keith completed.

"Of course it was." The grin was gone.

Keith wanted to slap himself for the dumb comment. "I’m sorry."

"Hey, none of this is your fault... It's all because of Shirif and her dumb torture culture." Lance paused and stared at him, with compassion and interest. "What about you? How are you feeling?"

Keith hummed in thought as he stared at his own hands, unstained of blood. "I don't know." He admitted, having  already spent some time thinking on what he saw, the only thing he could think about was the fact that, "It was awful."

"Yeah...yeah it was." Lance agreed with a sigh.

"But you know... Shiro keeps telling me that he might not make it, that I need to be ready to become the next leader of Voltron. So I started having nightmares where that happened, and so when I saw myself in the simulation I just thought 'another nightmare'." Keith told Lance, though he has no intentions of ever admiting this to Shiro; he didn't want him to feel guilty.

"How do you feel about piloting Black?"

Knowing how Lance felt about himself and how he felt about Keith team-wise, he would really rather not speak about a possible reality where Keith would become the leader of the team if that gave Lance another excuse to look lowly on himself. "I don't even want to think about it."

Fortunately, Lance didn't pry. "Okay, okay. So you mean to say you weren't surprised on the trial?"

"I guess so, in a way. It didn't make it easier, it still felt like hell but at the same time it didn't feel real?" He recalled the rest of the simulation and shivered. "Well... that was before I got up and started running to find you. It was- you were-" he bit his own lip, it felt painful to remember it, he didn't the image of Lance corpse in his head and didn't even want to talk about it out loud. Keith wanted to pretend it never happened if possible. He stole a glance at Lance who was frozen in place and looking down at his own hands, searching for something that wasn't there. "Are you okay?" Keith asked softly.

 "Me? Yeah yeah, you can keep going, I’m fine." The lie was obvious.

 _I would rather not_. It was painful for both of them to recall it. "I can stop Lance, I don't insist on dwelling on the simulation."

"I want to know, if- if you want to share." He said while holding eye contact.

Keith took deep breaths, not even sure what he could say. He remembered the feeling of the warm blood in his hands and the weightless body in his arms. Keith closed eyes, he breathing in and out." I just don't want to lose you, Lance. I guess that's obvious. After all, you showed up in the simulation."

"Why did I show up?" Lance asked instantly.  "Why not the others too?"

"You know why." Keith confessed, somewhat embarrassed.

"I know but- yeah okay." Lance stopped talking, obviously feeling self-conscious. "Sorry."

There was no reason to say sorry. Keith wasn't mad, there was no reason to be. He loved Lance, simple as that, so Lance showed up on his simulation. It was his own fault for that. However, he didn't mention this to Lance, because it seemed like Lance’s apology was meant more for himself rather than to Keith.

"I am not sure how I’m going to sleep tonight." Lance confessed, staring at the tip of fingers that had gone pruny.

"Me neither." Keith agreed, he was emotionally exhausted, but physically he was doing well enough, which meant it would be hard for him to get a sleepless night. "Maybe I’ll hit the training deck to-"

"Do you want to sleep in my room?" Lance interrupted, Keith stared at him and saw his eyes go wide.  _Apparently,_  Lance had not meant to say that out loud. "I- no I mean- you can ignore that."

Keith was open mouthed. Shock wasn't quite the word he would use to describe how he felt, just that he couldn't believe what he had just heard and was trying to process it? Okay maybe it was shock. "I-"

Lance cut him off before he could form a sentence. "You  _really_  don't need to reply to that." He said quickly, his cheeks flushed.

"I- wouldn't mind that." Keith said, out of impulse and barely thinking on his words. "I mean, only if it's okay with you."

Without even processing what Keith said, Lance started quickly replying. "No it's totally okay I understand comp- wait what."

Looking at Keith, he was aware that Lance saw him blush, awkwardly hoping he had said the right words as he could almost see the gears turning on Lance head.

"Oh."

 

"I shouldn't have asked for this." Lance rambled after opening the door to Keith and letting him inside the room. Lance hadn't even looked at him, just arguing to the floor while gesturing with his hands. "It's selfish of me isn't it?"

"I was the one who agreed to this." Keith answered.

At the sound of his voice Lance finally looked at him, he stopped just for a few seconds staring at Keith before speaking again. "Okay true, but like, isn't this rude to you?" He stopped to look at the ground again. "I haven't even replied  to your uh-"

"Lance, I never expected you to reply to my confession, remember?" Keith tried to reason but if he was honest with himself, Keith was starting to get hopes he would rather crush. Dealing with a rejection now would be way too painful than at the beginning of the week.

"Yeah, I know but I promised you that I would." Lance made eye contact with him, his eyes were swirling in confusion and doubt.

Keith hated to be the reason for such a expression. "If this bothers you so much, I can just go." He offered, on something slightly louder than a whisper.

As he turned around to leave, he heard steps quickly approaching him and the hem of his shirt was pulled. He looked back to see Lance grabbing onto his shirt. "No- You- this is fine." He staggered.

Keith narrowed his eyes, not convinced. "Are you sure? Won't you be uncomfortable?"

"Why would it- oh," Lance blushed, Keith gulped, thinking he had messed up. "I trust you, and yes I ‘m sure."

Keith turned around, facing Lance again, looking slightly up thanks to their height difference. "Okay, if you say so."

They were both in their usual clothes, shirts and jeans. Keith didn't mind that, it was usual for him to sleep like that, though he knew that Lance usually slept in his pajamas, but he didn't comment on it.

After possibly one of the most awkward moments in his life, where the both of them sat on the bed for a while in weird silence, and finally discussed how each one would sleep, deciding on Lance being the one near the wall.

Out of instinct they both laid with backs against each other as soon as they laid down.  The ambience was everything but relaxing, neither of them dared to make a sound or breathe too loudly. The tension was so high that it felt like a knife wouldn't even be able to cut through it.

Keith closed his eyes, hoping sleep would come to claim him and spare him from the embarrassment.

Instead a laugh cut through the heavy air that had set in the room. Lance was chuckling to himself and Keith was almost afraid to ask what was happening. Answering to his unasked question, the other spoke between the laughs. "This is dumb isn't it?"

He heard Lance turn in the bed, and Keith was now aware that Lance was most likely looking at his back. He laid on his back and turned his head to the place where Lance was.

First thing he saw was a set of smiling blue eyes. Lance kept talking. "What’s the point of sleeping in the same room if we aren't even comfortable with it?"

Keith didn't reply, but smiled back.

"Just three more days until it all starts, huh?" Lance asked, referencing the meeting they had attended after dinner.

At the meeting they had officially established a schedule and plans. In three days the Paladins, Allura and Coran would split off into different teams and would go on their own missions to find some materials necessary for the plan to defeat Zarkon.

Until that day, they were meant to train and review the plan so nothing would fail.

"Three more days." Keith repeated, agreeing.

"That means we busy ourselves with the serious talk  to the team tomorrow and then we have two days to have fun….we could go to the pool again." Lance imagined out loud.

It made Keith weirdly happy when Lance mentioned 'we' already counting the two of them. He tried to not dwell on it too much. "We should also train."

"You train, I sit by the side and watch. I’ll let you know I am an incredible visual learner."

"Sounds like you are afraid of a rematch." Keith tried teasing, hoping it would motivate Lance to pair up with him.

Lance squinted, catching onto his plan. "You’re just trying to get me riled up to accept training with you, aren't you?"

"Is it working?" Keith asked.

Lance pondered. "Almost."

"Guess I’ll have to try again tomorrow."

They settled back into silence, this time it was a lot more comfortable. Keith could hear Lance deeply breathing beside him, it felt somewhat hypnotizing... relaxing... He started feeling a bit sleepy.

"Hey, are you afraid of what will happen in the mission?"  Lance asked, sounding nervous.

Keith opened his eyes at the question. "Terrified."

Lance hummed in agreement. "Do you think we will still be able to hang out like this after?"

Keith blinked, he hoped so, he really wanted to believe so, but the truth is that he couldn't guarantee that. He couldn't promise that they would defeat Zarkon or that even if they did they would all come out of it unharmed. "I don't know." He replied honestly.

Lance seemed to expect this answer, he nodded slowly. He stared at Keith, opening and closing his mouth, obvious that he wanted to say something more.

Keith waited.

"Can I kiss you?" Lance eventually said, his eyes intensely gazing at him and his voice not above a whisper.

Keith heart stopped and he was suddenly a lot more awake, he immediately wanted to reply with a:  _Yes._ But he didn't want to do this wrong, he didn't want to mess up anything anymore. He didn't want to lose Lance to a dumb mistake and his stupid impulses. "Won't you regret it?"

Lance thought for a while. Keith stopped breathing meanwhile. "No. I don't think so."

"You think?" He raised an eyebrow.

Lance ignored that, he insisted on the question again. "Can I?"

"Yes."Keith said _. Not like there was ever another answer._

As Lance got closer, Keith closed his lips. He could feel Lance breathing against them, inches away from closing the gap.

Keith could smell something similar to mint on his breath. He felt himself go faint from how his brain tried to understand every single detail of what was happening, from the color of Lance's eyes to the sudden hand against his cheek.

Without any warning, the gap was closed and he felt Lance lips against his own. Time stopped. It was a simple kiss, just their lips touching and nothing else but Keith felt himself at the edge of insanity as he stared at the half closed deep blue eyes and the slight flush on Lance cheeks.

A part of Keith wanted more, wanted to deepen the kiss and ask for more, to bury himself in Lance’s chest and hold him close, feel more of his skin against his own, but the rational part of him held him back, he knew Lance should be the one deciding that.

He closed his eyes, thinking his brain would fry if he kept staring at all the details of Lance's features.

At that, Lance deepened the kiss for a single second. Keith replied accordingly and then Lance was pushing away, leaving Keith breathless with his eyes still  closed. He feared that he had messed up as he waited for a reaction.

Giggles made him open his eyes again, the sight Lance smiling while laying down incredibly close to him made Keith wonder if this was all a dream, everything felt so surreal. "Why are you laughing?"

"I don't know." Lance admitted, his cheeks were still flushed. "I never thought I would see you so defenseless? It's kinda funny."

"I could still fight if needed." He pouted.

"Sure thing tough guy." Lance agreed with a grin.

They stared at each other for a while, not really saying anything but at the same time not feeling the need to.

Eventually Keith, let his eyes close feeling the excitement and emotional exhaustion catching up with his body, and he muttered a "Goodnight."

Lance didn't reply back and Keith was too tired to mind.

After what felt like a minute, Lance spoke up again. "Keith? I want to tell you something."

Tiredly opening one eye to look at Lance, he mumbled. "What?"

"I think I want to fall in love with you." Lance murmured, fondness in his voice.

It was quiet. Keith didn't know how to reply, but he tiredly smiled. "Sleep well, Lance."

"I think I will." It was obvious in Lance’s voice that he was happy, it was hard for Keith to believe that he could be the reason for such cheeriness.  _Maybe this really is a dream._

Soon, they were both peacefully asleep. 

No nightmares came, no attacks happened, nothing went wrong.

It was simply a perfect night where two fools shared a blanket for the first time and fell in love once again, but this time it felt a lot more real.

 

Waking up had been embarrassing to Keith, but at the same time it left him overjoyed.  _It hadn't been a dream._

Now he just had to somehow deal with the positions he found themselves in that he had woken up to.

Lance, who Keith honestly should have expected to be the type of guy that snuggled other people in his sleep, was almost on top of him, his head was against Keith's chest and his arm was around Keith's waist. Meanwhile Keith himself had wrapped his arm around Lance’s back. 

Another thing he should have expected was for Lance to be the kind of guy who overslept because he had woken up first and found himself unable to move unless he wanted to wake the other up. He wasn't sure if this was a blessing or a curse.

His first idea had been trying to fall back asleep and hoping Lance would wake up meanwhile, but the feeling of Lance snuggling against him made his mind more awake than ever as he became over conscious of every inch that Lance was pressing against, trying to register the feeling and treasure it.

His mind wandered to the night before, that he was still silently celebrating that apparently hadn't been a dream. He recalled Lance laughing, the request... the kiss... the confession. Keith was blushing and he felt like he was about to overheat.

Officially, not being able to stay still anymore, he softly shook Lance awake. Softly he called. "Hey, Lance."

"Mhm?" Lance mumbled half-asleep.

"Can you move so I can get up?" He kept the same tone of voice, not wanting to disturb the other too much.

Lance moved slightly, turning his head up as he opened his eyes slightly, meeting his gaze with Keith's. Still unable to process what had been said he just asked, "What?" then he blinked and realized the position they were in. "Oh..." Flushing slightly he said. "Good morning Keith."

That wasn't the initial reaction Keith expected, he blinked and replied accordingly. "Morning Lance."  He repeated himself. "Can you... uh, move?" He almost regretted these words because of how comfortable it was knowing that Lance was still wrapped around him and awake at the same time.

"Are you uncomfortable?" He asked with what Keith associated with puppy eyes.

"No! I mean, I was going to eat and then go train before talking to Hunk." Lance was grinning at how flustered he was. Keith squinted. "Are you doing this on purpose?"

"Maybe just a bit." Lance said biting back a smirk.

Keith rolled his eyes, he was slightly annoyed but his smile didn't weaken."Did you mean what you said last night?" He asked, almost afraid of the answer but needing to know.

Lance hummed before answering. "Possibly."

"That isn't fair." He complained.

"You said I never play fair." Lance grinned, obviously proud of being able to use Keith's words against him.

Keith groaned, hiding his face with his free hand. "I hate you."

"No, you don't." Lance retorted, obviously proud.

 _Fair point._ "I don't, but I’m leaving either way."

"Fineee."Lance whined while rolling away from Keith.

Keith didn't hesitate on getting up. He sat at the edge of the bed and put his boots on, he could feel Lance staring at his back as he straightened his clothes.

Afterwards he got up and walked to the door, only stopping to look back at Lance and ask "Meet me on the training deck?"

"Sure thing." Lance replied, still laying down and having claimed the bed sheet all to himself.

_This is going to be a weird day._

 

The morning went by fairly quickly.

Without him even realizing he had finished the normal training sequence that he usually went through. He heard Lance clap behind him at the same time he told the room. "End training sequence."

He turned and walked over to Lance. "Didn't notice you were here." He lied, he had seen Lance enter a long time ago and it had been hard to ignore his presence a few times, which made him slip up more often than usual.

"I said I would be here." Lance grinned. "I see what you mean about needing a sparring partner. I think at this point you almost memorized their attacks."

"Not all. "

"Sure thing,  _show off_." He remarked with a soft push against Keith’s chest. "I might be slightly interested in learning some moves tomorrow."

"Really?" Keith asked, probably too sounding too happy, but he didn't care.

Lance looked away, flustered. "Yeah, really." He paused and looked back at Keith. "Now, go get yourself a shower while I got get Hunk, meet us in the lounge, okay?"

Keith mood dropped, anxiety kicking in. "Okay, see you soon."

That he was nervous must have been clear as day, and Lance stared at him softly. "It’ll be fine. See you soon."

 

The three of them were sitting in silence on the semi circular couch, in one of the common rooms. Keith was aware that the two others were waiting for him to start speaking. He took a deep breath before starting.

"Okay so I don't know how exactly I should start this but Hunk-" He paused to look at the said person.  "-I'm galra."

Hunk face went through three different expressions  in the span of a second, first he blinked in confusion, then he frowned, finally his eyebrows arched up, in surprise. He looked at Lance and said "Ohhhhh." As if he finally understood a complicated joke.

Keith was at a loss, this isn't what he expected. He squinted at Lance. "What did you tell him?"

"Wha- no! I didn't say anything!" He gestured widely with his hands, "I told you! People just won't freak out when you tell them!"

"Even you freaked out!" Keith exalted. "And what's with this reaction?" He said gesturing with one hand at Hunk while he stared at Lance.

Hunk intervened, "Guys please, you don't need to get a break up over this." Both of them closed their mouths and looked at Hunk, who stared at Keith in the eye. "Also all Lance did was tell me to be careful with what I said because apparently you have been stressing about this all week."

Lance spoke up in protest. "Hey! Don't sell me out like this!"

"Sorry man, but you know I can't lie!" Hunk shrugged at Lance.

Keith exhaled, this wasn't so bad. It was nice having people that he could trust like Hunk. "So you’re okay with it?"

"Yeah, well..." Hunk drifted off, raising his hand to caress his chin while in thought. "I mean, it's a bit weird but not like you being galra but more like how are you even galra? Someone from your family?"

"Yeah I think so. I just know I have galra blood." He paused. "I think it might have been my mom..."

"Okay, okay fair enough." Hunk narrowed his eyes and stared at Keith for a while, longer than what Keith was comfortable with. Eventually he spoke again."So, are you going to turn purple?"

"Uhm, I don't think so."  Keith replied honestly.

"Hmm, alright." Hunk nodded. "Who else knows, by the way?"

"Just us and Shiro." Lance replied.

Hunk hummed in thought. "So that means it's Pidge, Allura and Coran left." He took a moment to think about that. Then he said something Keith didn't expect. "You should tell them all at once."

Keith was startled. "Wha-"

Hunk raised a hand, interrupting him to explain his logic. "You’re afraid of them reacting badly right? I think if they’re in a group it’ll be less likely." He stopped for a second, letting Keith process his words. They made sense. "You should tell them yourself in private, meaning without me or Lance or Shiro there, having someone who knows would make things more complicated, in my opinion."

"I actually thought of that too. " Lance admitted, while staring at Keith. "But in the end this is up to you." Hunk nodded in agreement.

"Before dinner sounds good to me." Hunk suggested. "You know, I think I could even prepare something so delicious they would forget about the fact that you-"

"Hunk." Lance interrupted.

"Yeah okay. Maybe I’m just hungry." He explained with a laugh. "What about meeting them at the entrance of the castle? It's a nice day out."

Keith raised an eyebrow and contemplated the thought. It sounded like a good plan, which compared to his previous nonexistent plan, was better. He looked at Lance."Are you sure this is going to be a good idea?"

"Sounds like the best option. This way it’ll be over soon right?" Lance pointed out.

"The sooner we get this done, the better." Hunk added, agreeing. "I bet Allura is already going to be mad she didn't know for this long."

Keith sighed at the thought. "Allura is going to hate me."

"No, she won't." Hunk said with a pity smile. Then he gestured with his hands, thoughtfully. "But if you count the fact that the galra is the reason why her entire species almost died out and she lost all of her-"

Lance interjected. "Hunk, you’re not helping there buddy."

Hunk stopped the list. "Okay, she might hate you a bit at first-" he admitted, "-but she’ll eventually come with terms with it, after all whether she likes it or not, you are one of the Paladins."

It didn't make him feel a lot more confident but it helped a bit. "Thank you for understanding Hunk."

"No problem." He smiled, and then his face lighted up as he seemed to come up with an idea. "You know what,  come here you guys." Without protest both Lance and Keith let themselves be dragged by Hunk into a hug, Keith felt somewhat intimidated at first but it wasn't the first time they had done this and it was oddly comforting. He shared a glance with Lance and they both smiled.

With both of them still in his arms, Hunk wondered out loud. "So if you are galra, does this make Lance a furry?"

Lance scowled and look at his friend. "Hunk,  _what the f-_."

 

As proposed by Hunk and Lance, Keith found a way to gather the two Atleans and Pidge outside the Castle before dinner time. Just the four of them, sitting on the blue grass during the breezy but oddly comforting afternoon. Hunk was right.  _It is a nice day out_.

"I gotta say, Keith, it is rather surprising to me that you organized this." Coran said while stroking his moustache.

"Truly!" Allura said, happily joining her hands. "I am so glad you are finally reaching out to the rest of the team. When will the others be joining us?"

 "Well you see, it will just be us here, Princess." Keith said while looking into the horizon because that was just a lot easier than having to look at their expressions. "I have something I need to tell you three."

"What is it?" Pidge asked, raising a eyebrow in curiosity.

Clenching the grass under his hands, Keith tried to remember the feeling of Lance had on top of his own, it helped him calm down. He started speaking. "I’m galra." He paused for a single second before explaining himself further. "I’m galra as in, I have galra blood in me, I found it recently and I thought that-"

Allura interrupted him. "Is this supposed to be a joke? I am not finding it very funny."

Keith looked at her, to see her smile like a mother did to a child that was spouting non sense and tried to understand it. Keith breathed in. "No- it's true."

"What do you mean it's true?" The kind expression was slowly turning into something else.

As Allura raised her tone, he couldn't help himself but raise his as well. "It means that I actually have galra blood in my veins and I can't do anything about it!" A small voice told him that it was the wrong decision to get mad.

Allura got up, abruptly, she was clearly furious. "I refuse to believe that one of the Paladins is a galra."

That felt unfair to Keith. "Well Zarkon was a Paladin too wasn't he?" He pointed out.

Allura stared at him in disbelief, obviously that had been the wrong choice of words. "Are you defending Zarkon?!"

He cursed to himself.  _This isn't going well._ "No- that's not what I meant! Princess- "

"I won't stand around here to listen to this nonsense." Allura turned around and stomped her way back inside the castle, not giving him a chance to further explain.

Coran hadn't been able to say a word the whole time. He stared between the Princess as she left and Keith who just watched, open mouthed. Soon, he got up and followed her, just turning to say "We will talk later, Keith."

He let his head fall onto his hands, groaning to himself.

"Well that could have gone better." Pidge said beside him, their voice didn't really have any emotion behind it.

For a while, Keith had almost forgotten that Pidge was there. He stared at them, feeling lost. "What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing, I think you just need to give her time." Pidge simply replied.

"What about you?" Keith asked, acknowledging that Pidge must have some opinions about the whole ordeal themselves.

"Hmmm, I guess I’m having a hard time believing it too, but more of a analytical stand point, like how would a galra end up on Earth?"

Keith didn't know the answer to the question and didn't want to bother thinking about it either, he was more worried about another aspects. "So you don't hate me?"

Pidge looked at him amused. "Keith I wouldn't hate you. You have given plenty reasons to trust you, we are all part of a team." They reasoned.

"Thank you." Keith felt another weight being lifted off his shoulders.

"But you’ll have to understand that I won't trust other galras as easily. You just found this out recently right?"

"Yeah." Keith nodded, trying to understand where Pidge was going.

"Well then, you were raised by humans and lived on Earth your whole life and I can trust that." They paused, going from gesturing to Keith to gesturing to the town in front of them. "But these others have been fighting in this war their whole lives, they have spies in the Empire, Keith. And I believe that the Empire can do the same in this planet." Pidge explained.

"I guess that's fair."

"Now that that’s over with, I think I’m going to head inside too." Pidge got up and patted their clothes, getting the dirt off. "You coming?" They asked, offering a hand.

Keith shook his head. "I like it out here, I think I’ll stay a bit longer." When Pidge had already taken a few steps, Keith remembered something. "If you see Lance tell him not to worry."

Pidge raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised. "You guys have been getting along so well that it's almost creepy."

"Guess so." Keith said with a smile.

 

For a while, nothing happened, it was just Keith and the scenery.

It was comforting to be like this again, it felt like forever ago when he had been able to be alone with nature without worrying about anything.

Lance said that swimming on the pool felt like home. For Keith, this is what home felt like.

Then that moment stopped, a shout brought him back to reality. "You have to help me!" He heard someone call.

He got up as soon as he heard it, looking for the source to find a familiar alien girl running up to the castle. Keith ran to her, meeting her half way. He started questioning her. "What happen-?!" Before he could finish the sentence the girl had thrown herself onto him.

Keith froze as the girl held him closer, the physical contact with random strangers always made him stop for a few seconds. Everything felt uncomfortable, he was vulnerable and didn't know enough of the other person to trust them. He placed his hands on the girls shoulders, trying to pull away. "Can you please-"

Before he could finish his sentence he felt something sharp pierce his neck, he reacted quickly and forcedly pushed the girl away.

He had been too late.

Before his world went black he heard the girl speak again. "Sweet dreams, you galra scum."

 ---

Pidge was happily eating Hunk new recipe when Lance barged into the dining room, his hair was a mess, his breath was irregular and his jacket was falling off.

Everyone turned to him with suprised stares, waiting for some kind of explanation.

"What have you and Keith been up to?" Pidge teased.

Finally being able to catch his breath, Lance shouted. "Has anyone seen Keith?!"

Pidge blinked.  _Is this why Keith told him to deliver the message?_  "Lance relax. He is just outside, he told me to tell you not to worry."

"To hell with not worrying! I just came from outside!" Lance was still yelling and no one understood what he meant.

Frustrated at the lack of reaction, he just stomped his way to the table and placed a crumbled note on the table before leaving the run in a sprint. Possibly going to look for Keith on other places of the castle.

Pidge hunched over the table to read it.

 

_' I have the Red Paladin._

_If you want him safe, get the Blue Paladin to meet me unarmed._

_You told me to trust in galra, I tell you to trust in me._

_We will meet in front of that shop. '_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 50% of this chapter wasn't planned and thus it ended up as a double sized chapter, well... hope you enjoyed it!!  
> (I will draw a cookie to whoever gets right the identity of the alien girl)  
> PS- wrote [a very small thing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11528895) about depressed lance finding about piloting red lion, if anyone is interested!


	9. I'm not worried

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one has a nice time.

Lance was  _completely_  aware that he wasn't thinking clearly.

He had lost track of time, not longer sure for how he had been running around the castle. The only thought on his mind was finding any trace of Keith as he stumbled upon rooms he had never seen before.

_Since when did they have a second kitchen?_

The only sounds that Lance could hear echoing in the walls were his screams of Keith's name, his footsteps and his ragged breathing.  None of the things that he wanted to hear or see came to him, all he wanted was just a sign of the bastard with a mullet that had kissed him the night before, indicating he was still safe and sound inside these walls.

It wasn't that Lance didn't know that if he stopped for a brief second to think, he would realize that those were futile wishes. That Keith wasn't in the castle, he was  _completely_  aware of this, he just didn't want to believe it. He  _refused_  to.

His legs were starting to give up on him as he pushed forward, ignoring the limits of his body. He couldn't run forever and it was when he was running back to check their bedrooms again, that he finally tripped on himself. His face landing wonderfully against the cold floor and splitting his lip, the metallic taste filling his mouth.

Lance grunted as he quickly got himself back up, not wanting to waste a second. Suddenly his world was spinning and he stumbled on himself again, he was ready to embrace himself for a second impact but something stopped his fall. "Lance are you okay?" Blinking, Lance looked up to see Hunk worriedly staring at him.

He didn't pay attention to the question, instead he tried to regain his senses and get himself together. "Did you find him?" He asked with hope as he took a step away from Hunk.

Hunk kept staring at him with this look of pity, the way he had done before every time Lance was about to make a mistake. "Lance, you need to calm down."

He hated that look, but most of all he hated that his friend was right. "I- how can I?! Keith is missing!"

From over Hunk’s shoulder, Lance saw the others approaching. He was opening his mouth to ask them about Keith but before he had the chance Shiro stepped forward. "Your lip…you’re bleeding, what happened?"

Lance sighed, frustrated. He didn't want people worrying about him  _now_. "Doesn't matter, did anyone find Keith?"

No one replied, simply sharing silent looks between them, and Lance felt his anxiety grow. _This can't be happening._   Shiro placed a hand on his shoulder firmly keeping him in place, as if Lance still had the strength to run away. "Lance we should go sit down and talk about this."

He stared at Shiro, thinking. He knew that there was no use in what he was doing, but he didn't want to give up hope yet.  Sensing his hesitation, Shiro added "Allura and Coran will keep searching the Castle while we talk."

"I-" Lance opened his mouth to argue, but there was nothing else that he could say. "Alright." He complied while looking down at his shoes.

 

All of the Paladins gathered around the kitchen table, well, all but the one that was missing. Hunk sat beside Lance, in front of Lance sat Pidge and then Shiro stayed on his feet at the edge of the table.

They all stayed quiet as Pidge frowned and mumbled to themselves while re reading the note in their hands.

Eventually they cried out in defeat, throwing the notice onto the table. "I know I am supposed to be the smart one but... I’m not sure what any of this means." Pidge shrugged and then stared at Lance sharply. Lance looked away. "Honestly, this looks like it's a message to you if anything."

Lance focused on the back of his hands, that were resting on top of his legs. His right leg was shaking, an awful nervous habit he had. He knew what Pidge meant, of course the note was for him, it was blatantly specified there that they wanted to meet the  _Blue Paladin._

"Lance, do you know anything?" Shiro asked.

He looked back up and looked between the note and the others, biting his lip he let out a strangled "Yes."

The room went silent, it was obvious that the others were waiting for further explanation. Lance couldn't bring himself to speak as the guilt  began to crawl inside him as he recalled the events of a few days before. _This is my fault._  His chin was trembling, he could feel his eyes starting to sting, Lance choked back the tears.

He could hear Hunk concerned next to him. "Lance are you-"

"This is my fault." He repeated out loud, his voice cracking as he spoke.

The others stared at him with worry and surprise. "What do you mean?"

 Lance inhaled and exhaled slowly before he spoke again. "We met this girl in the town a few days ago, she was causing a commotion and-" his voice fell short for a second, he cleared his throat. "I stopped her... She was refusing to pay a galra for her food and I stepped up, Keith wasn't even involved he was just standing behind me I- this is all because of me."

"It doesn't matter who is at fault here. What matters is getting Keith back." Shiro said in that tone he used before missions, a tone too emotionally detached for Lance’s taste."Why was she refusing to pay?"

"She said she hates the Galra….they killed her sister”

"Does she know... about Keith?" Hunk asked.

Lance eyes widened, that wasn't something that he had considered.  _Did she know? Oh no no no._  "I... don't know." He replied horrified as multiple scenarios crossed his mind.

"Do you remember where you met her?" Pidge asked while pointing towards the note on the table." The shop that’s mentioned on the note, do you know where it is?"

Lance stopped to think for a second before replying, he and Keith had ate at that shop so he was fairly certain he could find it again. "Yes."

"Okay so that's a start." Shiro said, looking a bit more relaxed, as if there was still hope. "Is there no time specified in there?"

"No... I assume that she must already be waiting." Pidge said while pushing their glasses slightly up.

As soon as Lance processed the words he was getting up. "Then I need to-"

"Lance wait." Shiro stopped him.

"While we wait something could happen to him!" Lance snapped, the fact that everyone was so calm was starting to get on his nerves. "Aren't any of you worried? Because honestly it doesn't look like it!"

Shiro sighed, he brought his hand to his temples and massaged them. "I agree that we must hurry but please just wait and listen. Keith is important to all of us, Lance, that's why we can't afford to make any mistakes. Do you even have a plan?"

Lance pondered for a second on a plausible reply. Unfortunately, he couldn't come up with anything, frustrated he crossed his arms on his chest and replied. "Do I really need one?"

"Lance this isn't like you." Hunk said while placing his hand on Lance’s shoulder.

"Yeah, you’re acting like Keith." Pidge added. Silence filled the room, everyone stared at Pidge, who, realizing their words, quickly apologized, regret clear on their voice.

Shiro quickly stepped in before Lance could even think of arguing back. "Okay, okay. Let's all just calm down for a second." Shiro looked at him. "I think that from the note, it's safe to assume that she isn’t planning on hurting Keith, after all she asks for your trust."

"Well she doesn't have it!" Lance snarled.

Shiro sighed, the guy looked exhausted and Lance knew that he wasn't being fair, Shiro and Keith were like brothers, everyone knew this, and this must be hurting him as much as it was hurting Lance. "Lance, please. If we want this to work out we need to go along with their demands."

Lance dropped his defensive stance and tried to think logically. "So you really think I should just go meet this girl who somehow was able to kidnap Keith of  _all people,_  completely unarmed?"

"It's our only option."

There had been many times where Lance hadn't been able to agree with Shiro and his decisions, but this one was about to take the damn cake. Lance could barely fight without a weapon, he had been able to get one lucky blow against Keith a few days before and that was it. "You can't possibly be serious."

Hunk intervened with his opinion, thankfully on his side."I have to agree with Lance, I would rather have him go with some sort of defense weapon."

"I have a suggestion." Pidge spoke up again.

Everyone looked at them. They cleared their throat before speaking. "Okay so, I have seen that quite a few of them wear jewelry since we arrive and well, I haven't been too comfortable with the idea of walking around unarmed on this planet so me and Hunk might have... tried creating some weapons."

Hunk immediately reacted, exalted. "Wait- those? They are barely still functional!"

"Well, the bracelets work well enough." Pidge added with a shrug.

"Pidge, can you fill us in?" Shiro asked.

They hummed in thought before replying. "No, we’re running short on time." Pidge looked back at Lance. "Go change to your dress and I’ll meet you at the Castle entrance."

Lance didn't need to be told twice, he was running out of the room before anyone could say another word.

 

"So this was mostly based on my Bayard, you see the black part? There is a button on the center, when you click it the blue part will activate, and a electric current will run through it, basically it will become a stun gun. It basically only works close range and you shouldn't activate it when you have it on or you will zap yourself. You got all that?" Pidge finished explaining.

Lance hummed in thought as he played with the bracelet in his hands. "Take it off, touch black, don't touch blue. Yeah, I got it."

"If you really  _really_  need to use it long distance you could also throw it like uh a frisbee I guess? It will stay activated until you click the button again, though it would be risky so I wouldn't recommend it."

"Like the Sailor Moon tiara, gotcha." Lance said as he put the bracelet on. Seeing the questioning look Pidge was giving him he explained. "I have a lot of sisters and nieces Pidge, obviously we saw Sailor Moon."

"I never saw it."

"Your loss because it's a great show, we should see it together sometime." Lance admired the bracelet on his wrist, which didn't look completely out of place. "No more time for chit chat though, I have to go. Thanks Pidge."

"Be careful, Lance." Pidge said. Lance simply waved in reply as he started running towards the city. "You better come back so we can watch Sailor Moon!" He heard Pidge yelling.

\---

Keith groaned as he slowly regained consciousness. He could hear a distant, loud, acute voice speaking and it was making his headache worse. He slowly tried opening his eyes but the light made him unable to focus and made his head spin, closing them again quickly.

The voice was growing louder and louder, he tried to understand what it was saying but his brain couldn't process it.

Then, sharp pain interrupted any further attempt he had at trying to feel better.

His eyes snapped open and he threw his head back, screaming in pain. He felt like his whole body was on fire, especially his right shoulder that made him scream louder when he accidently moved it along with his head. His world was spinning and he couldn't focus. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." He stopped screaming and cursed as he desperately gasped for air.

Above his breathing sounds he heard someone laughing. Keith looked up and found himself staring at the girl that he had tried to help earlier. She looked amused. "Did that hurt? I am glad, but it's nothing compared to the pain your kind made me go through."

Keith tried to push away the pain to focus on his situation, looking away from the girl to stare around the room. It looked like he was in some sort of storage room, mostly empty apart from a few boxes. The lighting was white and too bright for his taste. 

 He looked at himself, his hands and feet were tied up behind his back onto the weird looking chair. As expected, his right shoulder was bleeding and the girl in front of him held his dagger, now soaked in his blood. "That's not yours." Keith said.

"Oh, I am aware. It's yours, isn't it? You lying scum." She played around with the knife in her hands as she spoke. "To think I almost gave your kind a second change after the blue one spoke to me." She looked away from the blade, stared at him and laughed, sarcasm evident. "Can you believe that? I almost thought of forgiving you and your people, while you were tricking everyone!"

Keith looked at her with more attention, and it finally clicked, he knew who she was. "You’re the girl of the market." He hadn't paid much attention to her aspect before, she was obviously not a local though, her pink skin with white markings was a dead giveaway.

"Oh, you remember me! Good."

"What do you want?" Keith asked, hoping to make some sense of the situation.

"Me? I want to make the galaxy a better place, the real question though, is what do _you_ want?"

Keith frowned, he had no idea what she was talking about. "I don't under-"

"Let's skip the clueless games." The girl interrupted him, placing his own blade against his throat. Keith stopped breathing for a second. "I found out about your little secret, and really, you must think you’re really smart don't you? I bet your confession to the blue one was a lie too, you’re tricking him aren't you?" The girl kept on making questions without really giving him a chance to reply, not that he knew how. "I feel sorry for him, he’s too good for you."

With that Keith felt the anger starting to build up inside him.  _What the fuck does this girl know about us to give her the right to say anything?_  He was aware he should think before speaking, but really, he didn't care. "That's none of your business and I still don't know what you’re talking about."

"I-" She pushed the blade further against his skin. Keith took in a sharp breath, keeping himself calm. "-am talking about the fact you are Galra. I heard your friends talk about it, the Galra that came with you, blade of whatever, they carry this same symbol with them." She pulled the knife away and pointed at the insignia engraved. "They were talking about you too, and how you are hiding who you are from the rest of your team. "

"I am not hiding anything from them." Keith interjected. Well if it had been a day ago, maybe that wouldn't be completely true, but now it was.

The girl chuckled. "You are just as bad as the one that killed my sister. You are actually pretending to not be like the rest of them. But it's a shame for you-" Suddenly there was a weapon that looked very similar to a gun being pushed against his head. "-that I won't fall for that trick anymore."

Keith eyes widened as he stared at the barrel of the gun, he panicked slightly, unsure of what was the right action. "Y-you don't know what you’re doing, you’ll regret this!"

The girl clicked her tongue, she didn't sound amused or convinced. She chuckled. "Are your threats supposed to scare me? You really are just like the rest of them."

Keith needed to think but he didn't know how. "I..."

The girl was no longer paying attention to him though, she lowered her gun and called for someone. "Papa! I have to go get the other."  _The other?_ "Patch him up, I can't have him die on us yet." Then, she looked back at him, grinning deviously . "Just you wait I will make him see you for the monster you are."

Shortly after the pink devil was out of his vision he could heard footsteps approach behind him, unable to help his curiosity and fear he turned his neck to the side to see who it was. Only to end up hissing in pain because his shoulder was still in a completely fucked up state.

"If I was in your skin, I wouldn't move." The new voice said, Keith frowned at the morbid expression.

He had been able to at least get a glace to know that it was a male figure with the same pink skin and markings as the girl. "Who are you?" He asked as he heard the man pull up a stool and site behind him. Instead of replying he started touching the skin around his wound, making Keith grunt in pain. Trying to ignore it with the best of his ability, Keith asked another question. "Where did she go?"

"To get your friend, the one in blue. " The man replied, no real emotion behind is voice, just blatantly stating a fact. Keith really didn't like the idea that he couldn't see his face as he spoke but he couldn't afford to open the wound further.

"What are you going to do with Lance?"

The man ignored his question, instead he kept playing around with some kind of tools around his shoulder. Eventually, he sighed. "You will have to forgive my daughter."

Keith laughed, bitterly and full of spite. "You can't be serious, she kidnapped and  _stabbed_  me."

"We have been going through a lot." The man voice sounded tired, it reminded him of when they spoke to aliens they rescued from Galra ships. " Hold still, this might hurt."

"What might-" Before he could finish his question the man was putting some sort of liquid on top of his wound and it fucking burned like  _hell,_ scratch what he had said before about feeling like his body was on fire, that was nothing compared to this, he felt like his shoulder was literally melting. He cursed, grunted, bit his lip as he trying to hold onto consciousness and closed his eyes, holding back the tears from the pain. When he finally managed to breathe again he spoke. "Fuck, what is that?"

"How are you feeling?" The man asked, ignoring his question.

"Awful." He replied honestly and making the anger as evident as possible in his voice. "Why are you doing this?"

The man got up and walked around, placing the stool now in front of Keith where he sat down. Once again he ignored his question, it was starting to piss him off. "She wasn't always like this. She and her sister used to trust Galra actually-"

"Doesn't look like it." Keith cut off.

The man sighed, looking at Keith with sadness in his eyes. "He, a galra, betrayed us, when we sheltered one of them, he was injured and we helped him..." He looked away from Keith, tears seemed to be forming at the corners of his eyes. Keith didn't feel any strong feelings about this display. "It was a trap, they knew someone was helping their fugitives... they killed my daughter, and her sister- she was never the same."

In any other scenario, Keith would feel bad for these people, he really would, but the throbbing pain in his body and the irritation in his blood made him think differently. After all, for all he knew this could all be an act. "If you think that's going to make me feel bad for you, you’re mistaken. If you really sheltered galra before, than you should know perfectly well that not all of them are like the Empire."

The man breathed in and out, slowly, composing himself again. He stared back at Keith."I know and I didn't want your pity either." He stared at Keith from up and down. "I want you to let me assist you."

Keith raised an eyebrow, suspicious. "I don't trust you."

"The feeling is mutual, but I am your only choice."

\---

Lance felt the sweat forming in his palms as he made his way through the crowded streets.

A few aliens had tried speaking to him as he walked past, and it took every bit of self restraint he had to not yell at them and just let him pass. When he reached the spot that he remembered, he avoided eye contact with everyone, placing his eyes on the ground, hoping no one would recognize him. Picking a dark corner between two stalls that stayed mostly in the shadows where no one would bother to take a look, he waited.

It didn't take long before a voice raised above the other noises, right next to him. "You have kept me waiting Blue, you are lucky that I am patient."

Lance turned his head, right next to him the girl from couple days before stood with a blue hood over her head. He didn't want to wait another second. "Take me to Keith."

She looked back at him, smiling with the type of smile you give a ignorant child. "Impatient, aren't we? I am happy you remember me."

"I can't say the same." Lance snapped back, coldly.

The girl actually looked sad at his tone, Lance didn't care, actually he felt a bit happy."Don't be so mean Blue, I told you to trust me didn't I?" Lance didn't comment, pressing his lips together to keep himself from saying anything he could regret. The girl eyed him up and down, her gaze stopped at his wrist. "Take that bracelet off." She demanded.

_Shit._ "Why?" He asked, as innocently as he could.

"I don't trust it, you weren't wearing it before."

Lance scratched the back of his brain, he remembered the girl mentioning something about...  a dead sister, that was the reason why she hated Galra, that means values family. "It's a present from my family, the only thing I have left from them, while I am on this whole saving space deal." He used his great acting skills to sound a bit sad about the fake fact.

"Why weren't you wearing it before then?" She squinted her eyes, obviously not convinced yet.

"The council took away our belongings to examine them for a while." He blatantly lied, hoping the girl didn't secretly have any connections with Shirif or anyone of importance.

Thankfully, apparently she didn't. "Tch, fine. Follow me."

They walked in silence, Lance avoided eye contact with everyone as he followed the girl. In the back of his mind he started thinking of possible plans, wondering if he could just knock her out as soon as they got to where Keith was, that sounded easy enough. He tried to keep his breathing calm and steady as he focused on that idea.

As they reached a storage house, Lance slipped his bracelet out as the girl unlocked the door, and hovered his thumb over the activation button, ready for his opening as soon as he saw that Keith was safe.

"You see, he has been tricking you Blue." The girl looked at him and smirked as she opened the door.

The statement distracted him. Lance blinked at the girl, trying to understand what she could possibly mean. What could Keith be tricking-  _no, he wouldn't_. Lance felt his stomach drop. Lance tried his best to keep his voice steady."What do you mean, my lady?"

She took a step inside, Lance followed. As soon as he got used to the lights he found himself staring at a tied up and bandaged Keith. He looked paler than usual, when they made eye contact, Lance could only describe the look on his face with the word 'fear'.

The girl smirked at Keith, looking like she had just won a war, then stared at Lance again "He is Galra."

Lance blinked, processing the words. "...and?"

The girl frowned, puffing her cheeks in the process. "What do you mean and? He has been lying to you! He isn't one of you!" She argued while waving her hands franticly.

Lance snorted, he tried biting his lip so he wouldn't laugh, but failed, he couldn't help himself. "You had me worried there." He stared at Keith who softly smiled at him, the expression made his heart flutter and he smiled back.  _Things will be fine._

"Why- why are you two smiling?" The girl demanded, looking clearly lost.

Lance sighed as he had to look away from Keith to face the girl. "He hasn't been lying to me, I knew about that." Then he smiled, dropping his tone dangerously and smiling exuberantly. "Now, with that all taken care of. I would love if you kindly offered yourself up and let me have my boyfriend back."

It took the girl about one second to change from surprise to hostility. In the second it took, she made a gun appear and pointed it at Lance. Where was she keeping that? "I don't think so."  She said.

"Miss, please think of what you are doing." Lance replied, while raising his arms slightly. "If this is about him being Galra, I assure you that you have nothing to worry about, he isn't even full Galra." Lance rambled, trying to buy them time. _If only I can get close enough to stun her._

He tried to take a step forward but was immediately stopped. "Don't move."

"We can surely work something out." He tried, while giving the girl a soft smile.

"Don't think I won't shoot." She placed another hand on the trigger. She tilted her head towards Keith. "Move next to him."

Before Lance could try to say anything back, Keith was speaking up. "Lance, listen to her." He stared at Keith, his eyes looked determined, the type of look he saw on Keith before a fight. Slowly he complied with the demand, placing himself right next to Keith’s chair.

"You might say whatever you want but I can't let the universe’s last hope be piloted by a Galra." She said as she followed Lance close behind, still pointing a gun at him.

And she was still pointing the gun at Lance when suddenly too much happened, too fast.

Keith started moving without a warning, jumping out of his chair and quickly using his left arm to grab the barrel of the gun and moving it away from Lance, snapping her wrist, Lance saw him make her throw the gun away.

It was at this point Lance understood what was happening and quickly slipped the bracelet off, activated it and while she stumbled away from Keith, he managed to place it right on her neck. Making her shriek in agony before collapsing against him. Uncaring, he quickly placed the girl on the floor, not really minding if he wasn't gentle enough.

Then, he rushed to Keith’s side. Lance found him on his knees just a few steps away, he immediately sat on his knees in front of Keith and stared at him concerned. Keith was using his left arm to hold on to his left side. "Fuck, fuck this hurts." He was wincing in pain.

Lance didn't understand why. "Keith, what happened?"

"I-" He raised his head to look at Lance, then he looked back down and took his hand away from his stomach. "I think I got shot." I replied, his voice hoarse.

"Wait what?! I didn't hear a gunshot." Lance panicked as he stared down at the blood, there was... a lot of it. "Okay shit, you’ll be fine we just need to get you to a pod." He looked above his shoulder and stared at the kidnaper. "And we also need to tie her up, we could come back after."

"No Lance, leave her be." Keith replied weakly.

"Excuse me? She shot you." He was  _not_  going to let her get away with this.

"And stabbed me, I am aware. "

" _What?_  " Lance asked, louder than intended.

Keith sighed, like the conversation was boring him."I’ll be fine, just need to get to a pod. We can't let this be known and they can't either, it works for both of us."

"What do you-" Lance was about to question further but he saw how quickly Keith’s skin seemed to be losing color, which was worrying considering how pale he already was, and how Keith was blinking and his eyes weren't really focusing on him "Never mind, it doesn't matter we need to get going right now."

Lance turned around, crouching front of Keith. "Can you climb up?"

"A piggy back ride? Really Lance?" Keith sounded somewhat amused, and while Lance was glad he was still able to joke around, but it really wasn't the time.

"Yes." He replied, completely serious. Keith complied shortly after, without saying another word he slowly placed himself around Lance, using only his left arm to grab onto Lance, not really able to move the other.

As Lance tried to carefully get up, he heard Keith grunting in pain. "How are you?" He asked, unable to hide the worry in his tone.

"I think the stab wound opened again."

"Shit, okay. Just stay awake alright?"

"I'm trying….Let's go."

Lance walked at a pace he deemed comfortable for the both of them. He could feel Keith softly breathing against his neck, other times this would have made him embarrassed, but right now it was a sign he was still alive and Lance welcomed it. "If you were free the whole time why didn't you run?" He asked, half curious half irritated that this was the outcome they ended up with.

"Because I wouldn't know what she would do to you if you got there and I was missing." Keith mumbled against his skin, so soft that Lance probably only heard it because of how close Keith mouth was to his ear.

Lance couldn't find it in himself the will to argue back with that statement so he shut his mouth and kept walking.

A minute later Lance was starting to feel his arms aching when Keith spoke up again."I’m ruining the dress."

"Didn't consider you the type who would care about clothes." Lance replied.

"You look good in it." Okay,  _now_  Lance was really worried. This is not something the Keith he knew and possibly loved would admit easily. He tried to pick up the pace as much as he could, trying to keep Keith as steady as he could so he wouldn't injure Keith any further.

"Considering they can't see red maybe they won't notice." Lance replied as an attempt of a joke.

"I don't think that's how being colorblind works." Keith chuckled, it sounded genuine but it was weak and frail. Lance didn't like it. "You called me boyfriend back there, is that what we are?"

Lance flushed slightly, he had been aware that in the spur of the moment he had taken some... odd wording decision... except maybe it wasn't odd at all. "Is this really the time?"

Keith speech started to sound less coherent, more bubbly and separated. "I just want to know... and the thought is helping me stay awake."

"If you want to be, I wouldn't mind." Lance confesses, feeling a bit flustered.

 "I would... love to." Keith mumbles, his words slipping even more.

Lance feels the weight against him increase and how Keith breathing starts to be more spaced out. Dread washes over him and he starts speaking whatever comes to mind."Hey, remember how you owe me a favor because I won the pool race? Well I am using it now, you have to stay alive, promise me."

 "Lance-"

"You have to promise." He insisted, desperate for some kind of reassurance.

"...I promise."

Lance legs were starting to give out when he started seeing the castle in the distance, he saw figures standing in the entrance and they must have seen him too because shortly after he saw them moving towards them. He sighed in relief, letting himself fall to his knees. Gently, he dropped Keith from his back and turned to him. Lance could feel his own arms trembling as he reached for and cupped Keith head in his hands. "The others are coming, you’ll be fine Keith."

Keith leaned in to the touch and raised his left hand to place it above Lances. "I’m... not worried." He whispered, as if trying to make Lance feel better. It didn't work.

 "Keith, I love you." Lance whimpered, desperation in his voice as tears formed in his eyes. He needed to say it, he needed Keith to know and he couldn't let Keith get into that freezing pod without making it clear. "I love you so much." He repeated as he placed his lips against Keith, softly and briefly.

Keith smiled with half opened eyes. Eyes that were no longer shinning on their usual purple but were clouded and unmoving. "I love you too." Keith mumbled weakly.

That was the last thing Keith said before passing out in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally updated after a month I am sorry, hope you all enjoyed season 3 as much as I did!  
> Next chapter should be the last so I wanna thank you all for all the comments and kudos once again and for sticking with me.  
> \---  
> A shot out to user Rose who has been commenting on all chapters and has been incredibly kind <3  
> 


	10. Living the Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things might be ending but this is only be the start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Super long chapter, finally ending this once and for all, with a little special thing at the end to celebrate!

Keith went numb in Lance's arms, like a doll whose strings were cut off.

Lance felt his world go out of focus, as if someone had just thrown him inside a fishbowl and everything happening beyond the water and the glass were just muffled sounds that he couldn't comprehend.

He didn't notice Shiro taking Keith out of his hold, carefully and steadily carrying him away, disappearing in the castle entrance with Allura and Coran on his toes. He didn't process the fact that Pidge and Hunk were helping him onto his feet, or the fact that they were asking him worried questions.

Lance simply stared ahead, unblinking, unable to think or say anything.

He moved his mouth thoughtlessly, closing and opening it, as if trying to convey a message that had been left unsaid to a person that was no longer there. As he did so, he noticed the taste of blood in his mouth. It was that taste that made his mind gears starts turning, pushing him back into the real world.

Blinking, he was forced back into reality as he stared ahead onto the empty castle entrance, with the afterimage of Shiro carrying Keith still in his mind.

Without a second thought, he started to run as fast as his legs could.

Reality finally came crashing down on him, finally able to understand what Pidge and Hunk were saying, which at that moment were just screams of "Lance wait!" "Are you okay?" "What happened?!" and things alike. He didn't answer to any of them, no, not yet. They weren't his priority.

 All of his muscles were screaming in pain, it was the third time he was pushing them beyond his boundaries that day _. I guess I really should train more._ Ignoring the ache the best he could, he kept pushing forward towards the room with the pods, with his friends close behind.

When he reached the room he saw Shiro and Allura talking with distress in worried whispers while Coran was fidgeting with some panels. All that didn't matter once he focused his attention on Keith, who was already inside a pod and frozen still.

Slowly, step by step, Lance made his way across the room, at the same time, everyone went silent. Lance was well aware that all eyes were on him. Meanwhile, he was only focused on Keith's face, which was more pale than ever.

Carefully, he raised his hand and placed it against the pod’s glassy surface. Lance closed his eyes and inhaled, holding his breath and then exhaling slowly. _Get yourself together, Lance. For both your sakes._

Lance turned to Coran, the one whose opinion mattered the most at the moment. "Will he be okay?" He asked, trying to keep his voice as steady as he could.

Coran stared at him for a while, as if processing the question, then he quickly shifted his attention to the panels where he had been working. "I believe so..." He informed, with a bit of uncertainty in his voice, which Lance wasn't very happy to notice. "It might just take longer than usual... a few quintants, sixty vargas at least I would say."

Lance sighed, turning his back to the pod and slowly sliding down it, sitting at the base of it, putting his head against the glassy surface.

He made the math in his head as he stared at the ceiling, not caring about looking at the others. "At least three days, huh?" He chuckled, the sound felt fake even to his own ears. "Considering they wanted to launch the attack in two days I bet Shirif and Kolivan won't be too happy with this, we will have to change our schedules."

An uncomfortable silence set in, Lance looked down to observe everyone on the room with bored curiosity. Their expressions showed clear worry, mixed with a hint of pity, staring at Lance as if he had went insane. _They might not be completely wrong on that though._ He wasn't dumb, he knew exactly what they wanted. _To know what happened on the rescue mission._

Allura was the one who stepped forward first,  voicing that exact question. "The war plans can come at a later time.  Now Lance, if you could, and... feel up to it, we would like to hear what happened."

"Afraid I don't know myself, Princess." He replied tiredly, each word out of his mouth felt like a drag and pointless.

"I see... do you think you need a couple of vargas on the pods as well?" Allura offered with a kind smile that felt an inch too short.

_Do I need time on the pods? Most likely._ However he didn't want to be frozen just yet, he wanted a few more minutes to process everything.

Lance sighed, deciding to answer to the first question instead. Which felt like a pain to recall and describe, but he was aware he didn't have much of a choice anyway, he would need to tell them sooner or later.

"I met her... the girl that made the ruckus a couple days ago, on the market as we expected." He started slowly.  "She took me to some kind of storage house in the outskirts of town... There I found Keith, and somehow she knew he was Galra." He paused to look away from everyone's gazes and stare at the ground instead, remembering how worried Keith looked when Lance found him. "She thought he was lying to us about who he was on purpose, wanted to show me the 'truth' or something weird like that." He said with bitter amusement, then he stared back to Allura. "Couldn't let the 'Universe;s Last Hope' be piloted by a Galra, she said."

Allura avoided his gaze, looking guiltily at the ground. "I see." Lance felt childish for antagonizing her like this, he knew perfectly well that Allura never wished for any of this to happen to Keith, but Lance was angry and had no place to let it all on. 

"How did Keith get injured?" Shiro asked, stepping up besides Allura.

Lance bit at his lip, the wound he had done to himself earlier easily re opened and the taste of blood filled his mouth again. "I-I don't know..." He recalled Keith trembling in his arms and felt like crying again, though he knew he physically couldn't, his eyes were as dry as they could be. He exhaled, his hands were trembling. "She uhm... She had something that looked like a gun, and was pointing it at me at first, but then Keith interjected he- we got in a fight, and brought her down but... then I saw him and he was just... like that- there was no sound- no... no nothing, I don't know what happened."

This time it was Hunk that spoke. "When Pidge and I went through the market yesterday we found a weapons store where their guns didn't make any noise."

"Laser guns that don't make sound?" Lance raised an eyebrow, he clenched his hands into fists, trying to keep them steady. "How convenient..."

"Well it's better than our bad sound effects." Pidge mused with a forced smile.

"Guess so." Lance said, not as cheery.

"But what about the girl, where is she?" Allura asked, raising her voice once again, on that diplomatic tone of hers. "We must catch whoever is behind this."

Lance shook his head. "I'm not sure why but Keith said we shouldn't, also if we go out and catch them we would need to deliver them to the council and make it known why she took Keith, they would find out he’s galra." Lance held his hands together tightly. "I don't think he wants others to know... at least not like this."

Step by step, Hunk moved forward and joined Lance besides the pod, putting a hand on his shoulder. "He’ll be okay Lance." Hunk reassured, while looking him up and down, not even trying to hide his concern. "And are you okay, Lance? Aren't you injured at all?"

"Not of the kind that come from a soundless laser gun, no." He said, not feeling as happy about the fact as he should be. Didn't feel fair to him that Keith was in such an awful, near death state while he was basically unharmed. _And he could have even escaped on his own if it wasn't for me._

"That’s good news!" Coran chirped up from his panel, as if trying to lighten up the mood by seeing the bright side. "Who would have known what could have happened if you both had been too injured to reach the castle!"

Lance smiled weakly in reply. "Thanks."

The room went silent again and Lance felt like he was at his limit. "I think I will take Allura’s earlier offer though, I might have strained my muscles too much. Coran, do you think I can stay on a Pod for the night?" He asked, trying not to sound as miserable as he felt.

Staying in the pod at least guaranteed him some rest, not the most comfortable one, he knew that from experience, but it would be something. That would be way preferable to the possibility of having nightmares involving Keith possibly dying.

"Sure thing, lad!" Coran quickly typed on his panels and the pod next to Keith opened up.

Silently, Lance made his way over and got inside, no one else said a word, probably unable to know what was the right thing to say. Lance didn't censor them for that.

Putting on his trademark grin he waved. "See you all in the morning."

 

The next two days went by really, really, really slowly.

From Lance’s perspective that is.

The others were busy and for Keith it would all just feel like a short nap if anything.

It had been difficult to convince him to not stay in the pod room until Keith woke up. He only conceded because he was still a somewhat rational person and knew he needed sleep that wasn't against a cold hard pod and because he was tired of all those worried glances that the others were giving him.

He loved attention, but not like this.

His pretending had been fine until this point, until the first trial, until Keith confessed. Everyone declared him as the simple goofball of the gang, and while it hurt, that was all he would measure up to when he was next to such incredible people. He had accepted that a long time ago. Now, out of nowhere, it was all out in the open and instead of people understanding that he was right they looked at him with pity that he didn't deserve.

The days were slow but that was to be expected when mostly all he did was stand in a cold room alone, waiting and hoping that Keith would suddenly wake up ahead of time; just because Lance desperately needed some proof that this situation wasn't going to be permanent. He trusted Coran, he really did, but he couldn't help but worry every second he spent staring at Keith.

Hunk kept him company every couple of hours, bringing him extra snacks between meals, which was somewhat fun, especially because Hunk decided to start experimenting and creating new recipes.

He found it hard to have the appetite to finish all the food Hunk brought.

Pidge also came by a couple of times to check up on both him and Keith, usually Coran was with them, explaining to Pidge the way the pods functioned along with other mumbo jumbo that Lance didn't particularly care about and tuned off.

When Coran left, Pidge sat around asking him what was the deal about Sailor Moon and what other shows Lance saw with his sisters. Lance appreciated the distraction.

Shiro and Allura were the ones who spent the least time inside the castle after the incident, coming and going from meetings nonstop, trying to reorganize a whole another date to go against the Empire.

Lance had joked about it but apparently there was more paperwork involved in re scheduling than he thought, spies on the inside to contact and all that.

He found a couple of ways to pass the time when he was alone. Singing and napping were the ones he did the most. Most of the singing were lullabies he remembered from home, with some lyrics forgotten and replaced by humming.

Apart from that he spoke to himself, to the walls, to Keith if he was actually able to hear him, which he doubted.

"When I was in the pod I think I had a dream but then when I woke up every memory of it was completely gone... it's kind of sad how dreams fade away like that." Lance rambled to himself.

"The first time was pretty weird you know, when I was about to wake up I could hear your voice in the distance, it sounded like you were angry at me for taking so long to wake up."  He laughed at the memory. "Then I was out and everything felt like it was spinning and it was hard to stand because suddenly there was no pain compared to before... How do you plan on standing after all those injuries? I bet you’ll be dizzy as hell man. You’ll probably trip on yourself." Lance chuckled. "You do know you don't have to stand up all on your own right?" Lance wasn't only talking about the injuries.

"Apparently tomorrow I’ll have to go on a mission..." Lance said after Allura and Shiro visited him on the second day. "They say I’m necessary for its success, that my sharp shooting skills are needed." Lance raised his finger to mindlessly tap on the glass. "I wonder if you were right about me being necessary for the team or if it's their excuse for me to leave this room."

"I would like to say that I will be mad if you wake up before I come back but honestly I just want you awake..." He replaced his soft tone to irritation, the emotion fit him like a glove if it was addressed to Keith. "I hope I don't have to remind you that you promised me you would survive this. I swear I will make your life a living hell if you die on me."

He sighed, exasperated. "Seriously though do you know how much of a dick move it would be to make a guy fall for you _again_ just to die in that same week?" He argued to the unmoving Keith. "And on top of that, do you know how many promises we have to fulfill? Way to many!" He showed his hand to the pod and raised his index finger. "First, I have to take you back to earth and kick your ass on bowling. " Raised another finger. "Second, I need to introduce you to my family." Another. "Lastly, I also promised I would have a dumb training deck sequence with you... which was supposed to be yesterday but I suppose you don't mind changing the day."

Lance dropped his hand on his lap, still staring at Keith, he let his head fall, placing his forehead against the glass. "Please just wake up..." He sighed and closed his eyes. "I miss you."

 --- 

When Keith started feeling consciousness coming back to him, moving was difficult.

He felt like he was drenched, with the water freezing him to the core and putting more weight on top of his body. His leg muscles were stiff and were waking up slower than his brain.

Suddenly, there was a rush of cold air passing through him, jolting him into awareness as he started tumbling forward, opening his eyes just in time to see the ground getting closer to his face, quickly closing them again and bracing for impact.

But nothing happened.

Instead he had been stopped mid fall by something firm.

"Hey hey, you’re awake way earlier than we expected." The voice was familiar, very familiar. Slowly opening his eyes again, he looked up to meet eyes with Hunk, who was kindly smiling down on him. "Steady now, you were in a really bad shape when Lance brought you back."

Keith took a second to recollect himself and stand on his own. He tried to take a step forward, but his own legs decided to betray him and he ended up waving right and almost falling again just for Hunk to stop him again, placing a hand on his shoulder and helping him sit down. "How about you sit right here while I go get you something to eat?"

Keith ignored the question, thinking back to his last awake moments instead. "Where is Lance?" He asked instinctively, which in retrospect probably was a stupid first question to ask, along with how stupid it was of him to expect that Lance would be the first person he would see after he left the pod and how disappointed he felt that it wasn't.

Hunk looked at him with a mix of sadness and amusement "Unfortunately for the both of you he had to go on a mission along with Shiro and Pidge."

"Oh." Keith slowly replied, realizing that he didn't know how much time had passed.

Hunk smiled. "He also wanted to be here for when you woke up."

Keith opened his mouth ready to ask another question but Hunk quickly interjected. "Nope, no more questions until I get some food in that stomach. You’ve been on a pod for two days and half, you need nutrients." _Well that answers one question._

As Hunk disappeared to go on a food mission, Keith slowly warmed up each of his limbs, helping his blood pass through his body to get rid of the feeling of static in his muscles. It felt weird to think about how he had been frozen for over two days. He wondered what Lance did during that time.

As soon as Hunk came back with several plates of food Keith meant to ask right away about Lance but once again was interrupted. "Like I said, no questions until you eat."

He looked at the plates of food, that were obviously had too much for him to eat all on his own, but he quickly went ahead and took a few bites. With his mouth still full he started speaking again. "Is Lance okay?"

Hunk hums in thought, as if pondering what were the right words. "Well, relatively speaking, physically he’s good, he was on the pod for a couple hours, and obviously we wouldn't send him on a mission if he was injured." He paused for a second, something like empathy on his tone."But... he’s been quieter since you two came back, at least around us, but that might be because he also didn't leave this room much." He offered a small smile. "Don't tell him I told you but... I heard him speaking to when you were still in the pod."

"He didn't leave this room much..." Keith echoed the words to himself, feeling a mixture of sadness and happiness at the fact.

Hunk nodded in confirmation. "Mostly just left it for meals and to sleep."

Keith stared at Hunk wordless.

"He really loves you." Hunk said as if reading his mind and doubts.

"I- " He didn't know what to say. The memory of being carried by Lance, along with the confession and kiss felt so hazy but so real at the same time. He remembered the desperation in Lance’s voice as he was bleeding out and he remembered how in that moment where everything was wrong and upside down, Keith felt weirdly calm and content with Lance by his side. He knew that Lance had said he wanted to fall in love but- "Are you- are you sure?"

Hunk laughed wholeheartedly. "And are you sure that you even need to ask me that?" He placed a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. "Don't worry, soon he’ill be back and you two will have one of those super cheesy reunions like in the movies; and hopefully the Lance we all know and love will come back."

Keith mirrored his smile, he hoped that Hunk was right.

"Do you... know what he said while I was in the pod?" He asked half embarrassed and half curious, doubting Lance would ever tell him.

"I only caught bits and pieces..." Hunk hummed in thought, tapping at his chin. "Sometimes I heard him sing, which for the record I haven't heard him sing in years, and I recall something about making your life hell if you died."

"Sounds like something he would say." Keith mused, while taking note of the singing part, wondering if he could ever convince Lance to sing for him, and a part of him held onto that hope.

They kept on talking for a while, mostly about Lance and silly stuff he’s said. Hunk shared some stories and Keith could feel small tears form at the corners of his eyes and his stomach hurting from laughing so much.

Then they heard a polite cough, interrupting their conversation.

Keith looked over to the entrance to find Allura standing respectfully a few steps away from them. "May I have a moment with him in private?" She directed her question at Hunk. Keith was able to notice that she didn't look as confident as usual, fiddling her thumbs as she held her hands in front of her.

Hunk looked between the two of them, spending a second longer on  Keith with concern in his eyes. Keith nodded slowly. He had a feeling he knew where this conversation was going, or at least he hoped he knew.

Hunk got up. "Okay, feel free to call me if you need me." He said while sparing another look at Keith as he left, giving him a thumbs up as if saying 'Good luck.'

 

Allura stood silent and Keith wasn't sure if he should offer for her to sit beside him or leave her be. He couldn't help but wonder and hope that his assumption was right.

As they stared at each other, Keith felt like they were both trying their best at walking around shards of glass instead of just picking them up and cleaning the mess.

"I am glad to see you awake and well..." She started, looking a bit anxious.

"Thank you." He replied unemotionally as he took another bite at the alien looking food that Hunk had brought him. It was easier to eat than to keep a slow conversation.

She took a few steps forward silently. "May I sit down?" She asked politely.

Keith nodded slowly.

She brought her hands to her chest as she spoke, keeping her elegance as always. "I owe you an apology for the way I reacted about your... revelation."

"Do you hate me?"  He asked straightforwardly, deciding that picking up the glass was less painful.

She stared at him sadly and then looked at the ground, the wait for the reply, the hesitation felt like a punch on the gut.

"No, of course I don't hate you." She replied slowly, considering each word. "You are part of this team and without you here we wouldn't have gotten this far, you have helped me bring the legend that my father created back to life and I am thankful." She paused again to look at him, determination in her eyes. "But you must understand, it was the Galra that betrayed and killed my friends and family, so all this was very... conflicting for me."

"Yeah... I know." Keith said carefully, he might be hot headed but he wasn't dumb. Of course it was hard for her to accept this. "But it is not like I had anything to do with that..."

She nodded slowly, taking in a deep breath before she kept going. "Yes, I think it's about time I recognize that not all Galra are evil. The Blade of Marmora has accomplished a lot, and helped us plenty and they deserve my respect and recognition for taking part in ending this war."

"I am glad to hear you say that." Keith said, feeling like the glass had been cleared out. Lance had been right, things had worked out.

"I have realized that if I really want the fight for the defense of the universe I shouldn't be blinded by revenge or hatred like-" She cut herself off, regretting her own unfinished sentence.

_...like the one who kidnapped and tortured me._ He frowned at her. "You are better than her Allura."

"I- Thank you, Keith." It was then that he saw her truly relax. "And I am really sorry for what I said, I really am."

He offered a small smile.

Keith ended up spending most of his day on the training deck, it was a good way to get his body working properly again and it kept himself distracted from the lack of Lance inside the castle, or the fact he had went on a dangerous mission, or that he still wasn't sure where they stood.

The others wanted to ask about the kidnapping, it was pretty obvious from when they interrupted themselves in the middle of a sentence. Ending up deciding be considerate and let the subject drop for the time being.

Keith was thankful for this because he wanted to talk to Lance about what happened before anyone else. He knew Lance had questions and he deserved them more than the others, Keith had questions too.

His mind wandered to that night as he kept fighting.

_Lance finding him_. He swung forward and the gladiator dodged. _Lance carrying him_. He dodged an attack directed at his stomach.  _Lance crying as_ -

The castle speakers turned on, with a loud noise cutting through all his thoughts.

With his concentration broken, he lost balance, falling on the ground as the gladiator swung it's sword above him, only catching a hair.

"End training sequence!" He yelled as he tried to regain his breath while getting back up. The gladiator went lifeless in front of him immediately.

Keith focused on the message that echoed on the walls. "Shiro, Lance and Pidge are back everyone!" Coran's voice repeated over and over again, telling them to meet up at the hangar.

It took him a fraction of a second start running out of the training deck, his steps as wide as possible. _He is back. Lance is back._

With each step he felt the distance between them grow instead of the opposite, missing him more and more. He was aware that for him it had just been a couple of hours of waiting but it still felt like too long when the last memories he had of him were blurry like a bad dream.

He wanted- _needed_ to make sure that Lance was alright with his own eyes.

 

On the hangar, Keith stared at the giant blue Lion in front of him, while his chest grew and shrank as he recollected his breath from the sprinting, only to stop breathing completely when he saw the three paladins coming out of the Lion's mouth.

Keith was frozen as soon as he recognized Lance, who stood in front of the others, jumping in his place and murmuring to himself, obviously distracted. Keith blinked, unsure of what was the right thing to do, he had came running  all this way to see if Lance was alright. _He is._ To talk to him. _But what do I say?_

Another second passed and Lance was noticing him and it was his turn to freeze, standing completely still as they stared at each other.

Keith felt his heart stop. _Do something._

He took a step forward, and as if in reply Lance did the same.

Another step.

One more and they were both running towards each other.

Keith legs felt a lot lighter compared to before, and his mind went empty from all the thousand worries he had been holding.

They met halfway.

Only a few feet apart from each other, Keith stared at Lance, over conscious and unsure what was the right next step.

Lance answered that for him, only taking a second to walk closer and wrap his arms around Keith, holding him close and tightly. "You’re a goddamn idiot." Lance whispered against his shoulder.

He could feel Lance shaking as he held him tighter.

Keith relaxed onto the hold. Lance armor was cold against his sweaty hot skin and tight clothes, but it was still Lance. It was Lance and he was unarmed and was holding him and they were both alright.

Keith carefully raised his hands and placed them on the back of his armor, then he pressed his face against Lance's shoulder. "I’m so glad you’re safe." Keith murmured.

Lance chuckled. "I should be the one saying that."

He laughed too, Lance did have a point, he had been the one at the brink of death.

"I missed you." Lance said, the words dripping with emotion and honesty.

Keith felt himself go warm at that, a larger smile creeping onto his lips. _Lance had missed him._ "It was only two days wasn't it?" He asked.

Lance pulled back from the hug, and Keith immediately regretted his words because he didn't want to be apart from Lance just yet. Lance raised his hand and pointed at him accusingly, gentle mockery in his tone. "And do you know how boring two days without the best person to make fun of are?"

He rolled his eyes in reply."I missed you too."

Lance smile grew and everything about his expression screamed pure joy. Keith had never seen him make such a expression and it made his heart jump.

Next, Lance's eyes were filled with concern as he stared at him, raising his hands to cup Keith's cheeks. "But do you feel alright? When did you wake up?"

Hunk coughed and answered for Keith. "About an hour or two after you left."

It was at that moment they realized they weren't alone in the hangar, and the others were in fact, still there. Who were staring at them with amused grins. Keith could almost see them eating popcorn as they stared.

Lance dropped his hands awkwardly. "You just had to make sure I wasn't around to wake up, huh?" Lance joked while bumping their shoulders together.

Shiro looked at both of them with that proud big brother smile. "Glad to see you awake Keith." Keith smiled in reply.

"Good to have you back." Pidge said afterwards with a grin. "Also, please never disappear again otherwise I think no one will be able to deal with Lance."

"Hey!" Lance protested. Pidge stared back at him with a questioning eyebrow. "...Okay you have a point." Lance resigned and turned to Keith. "There you have it, don't you dare get yourself bleeding to almost death ever again."

"Will try my best." Keith joked back, imitating Lance’s tone. The others laughed at that.

Allura stepped closer to Shiro and asked, changing the topic. "How did the mission go?"

Without a seconds wait, Lance and Shiro grunted in reply. That particular reaction from Shiro surprised everyone but Pidge, who pushed their glasses up, smirking. "Pretty well, we managed to secure the prisoner."

As if practiced, a sound was immediately heard from Blue Lion, more specifically, a tiny voice came from it. "I heard that this is one of the realities where the people of Dhaki accepted to help us, there is only a two percent chance of this happening, with their forces on our side our success rate goes up by at least five percent!"

Shiro buried his face in his hands as the green slime alien with several arms approached them.

"Annnnd that's our signal to leave, I have been around this guy long enough for the day."  Lance says while throwing his arm around Keith’s shoulder and dragging them out of the room. "Have fun with the crazy alien y’all! And make sure Shiro doesn't snap!"

Keith let himself be dragged along, still very lost on what has just happened.

After a few seconds of walking, Keith realized that he didn't know where Lance was taking him. "Where are we going?"

"To our room." Lance replied without much thought. "I’m dead tired and I want sleep."

"Our room?"

"I uhm-" Lance staggered, realizing his own words and pulling his arm away from Keith. Keith wished he hadn't done that."If you want to come over I mean, go to my room and like before you know-"

 Keith reached out for Lance's hand and intertwined their fingers. "I would love to."

 

Shortly after, they were both laying down on Lance's bed, having switched out of their clothes to pajamas, with the bed sheets over them. The lights were dim and it was hard to see each other completely.

"We have some talking to do." Keith said, making Lance stare at him, they were so close he could pretty much feel Lance breathing against his skin.

Lance hummed, swept one arm around Keith’s waist and planting a kiss on his forehead. The gesture made his stomach swell up with butterflies and his heart flutter. Ever since they had ran up to each other on the hangar everything felt like a dream and Keith didn't want to wake up.

"We do, but right now we should rest, in the morning we’ll talk, you have some explaining to do still." Lance lazily replied.

"I know and-"

"All that can wait for tomorrow." Lance dismissed with a yawn. "Goodnight Keith." He said as he pushed Keith closer to him and buried his head against his chest.

"Goodnight Lance." Keith replied with a tired smile.

 

Keith was stirred awake with a literal weight on top of him along with a soft tapping on his nose. He grunted as he slowly opened his eyes. "Nhh, what?"

It didn't take him long to realize what situation he was in.

Very much like the last time he and Lance slept on the same bed, Lance had ended up on top of him. However, unlike the other time, Keith was the one who had been woken up by Lance. Who had apparently been entertaining himself by bopping his nose.

"Morning, sleepyhead." Lance singsonged. 

"Morning." Keith mumbled back, using his one free hand to rub his eyes. "You’re awake early."

"Nope, you’re the one waking up late." Lance said with a grin too bright to stare at when Keith had just woken up, like he had just opened the window to stare at the sun high in the sky after sleeping in.

"I blame it on the pods." Keith sluggishly replied while closing his eyes again.

"Sure thing, tough guy." Lance chuckled, clearly amused at seeing him in this half asleep state. Keith wondered just for how long Lance had been awake to already be this lively. "Well, I think it's time to answer some questions."

"I literally just woke up." Keith  pointed out, still trying to get used to both the light in the room and the closeness to Lance. It was warm but it wasn't uncomfortable, very much the opposite really, if he wasn't too busy trying to get himself awake he might have wrapped his arms around Lance's back

"I thought you woke up quickly? You’re usually really fast when its an emergency."

_Fair point._ This wasn't a usual occurrence for him. He squeezed his eyes with his fingers and breathed in deeply. "Alright, alright. What do you want to know?"

Lance hummed in thought for a while. "Okay so... how did she even catch you?" Lance asked. "You’re like, our best hand to hand combat fighter after Shiro, and when we fought her together she wasn't all that impressive."

Keith frowned, recalling the memory, she had thrown herself against him and then... he froze up. "I think she used some kind of sleeping drug on me... when uh, my guard was down."

"Oh, guess that makes sense."Lance said while nodding to himself, then he looked over to Keith's shoulder, looking for something that was no longer there. "When did you get stabbed in the shoulder?"

"She uh... did it to make me wake up, I think." Keith moved his hand to the said shoulder, and massaged it, there was nothing there anymore, the pods removed all traces of it as if it had all been a bad dream.

Lance blinked, then stared at him angrily, though Keith knew the anger wasn't directed towards him, and he almost felt bad about how much he enjoyed seeing Lance get mad because of him. "Okay fine, she was messed up, got it." Lance said, distaste in his tone. "Why was the wound patched up and why weren't you tied up?"

"That was all her father, I think, while she went to get you he patched me up and made a deal with me in exchange for untying me."

"And the deal was to not turn them in." Lance concluded, to which Keith replied with a nod in confirmation. Lance groaned and buried his head against Keith's chest. "You were way too reckless, we barely managed to get out of there alive."

"I know, planning isn't exactly my thing." Keith said with a shrug. His plan had sounded right at the time, and things had managed to work out one way or another, but he knew one thing. "As you can see, Shiro is wrong about me being able to lead this team."

Lance hummed against his chest, apparently pondering over something. Then he raised his head again, staring at him in the eyes. "I think you could grow into it with some help. You just have to listen to others more."

Keith smiled softly in reply. He didn't want to lead the team or thought he could, but knowing that Lance would trust him even if he did cheered him up.

It was then that he remembered he had one question of his own, but was too afraid to know the answer. Like ripping off a band aid, he figured out it was best if he did it quickly.

 "So uhm... what exactly are... we? I mean- I- I know what you said from that night- more or less but are you...uh- sure?" Everything about the last moments before the pod felt like a daze, a fever dream, he knew Lance had said that he wanted to fall in love with him but-

"You mean about the fact I said I love you?" Lance asked, interrupting his thoughts.

 Keith blinked at the bold honesty, then nodded apprehensively.

"I did and still mean it." Lance stated as if a simple fact.

 Keith felt his heart tighten. _This is real and this is happening._ He felt panic fill him before happiness. At least for now, while doubts and fears of being left alone again clouded his judgment. "What made you change your mind? I mean- it's like you said I barely listen to others and I’ve hurt you because I don't think things through and-"

"Keith, Keith, I’ll let you in on a secret." Lance stopped his rambling, smiling softly. "I already liked you before your confession."

"Wait- what?" Keith stared at him wide eyed, if he hadn't been fully awake before, he sure was now.

"Well it was more like uhm-" Lance avoided his eyes, looking a bit awkward and unsure of himself, which was an unusual look on him. "-I admired you, you have all these things I don't and you are like, really pretty. I liked you but you were just so... above my league?  I crushed my hopes." Lance chuckled bitterly. "I guess that's why your confession reminded me so much of my silly old crush, being used by people I like."

"I am sorry I didn't know"

"You already apologized enough, and also..." Lance smiled returned, softer this time. "You’re not very good at reading people, though apparently neither am I when it comes to you." Lance chuckled as he bopped Keith's nose again. "You’re one of a kind."

Keith smiled back. "Thanks."

Lance started biting at his lip, Keith was starting to notice he did this a lot when he was nervous. "I know that you said all that about me being irreplaceable but..." He paused awkwardly. "Are  you sure you still love me? We have been spending more time together you must have realized how normal and lame I am compared to everyone else on the team..."  Lance words became mumbles, starting to speak more to himself rather than Keith. "You might want to leave me when you realize you can have much better."

"What are you talking about? I think you are incredible as you are." Keith said raising one arm to bop at Lance's nose, copying what Lance had been doing moments before. "More than me if I am honest. I still mean everything I said back in that forest, this team needs you... and so do I."

Lance grinned, everything about the way he acted was dripping in happiness, Keith felt like he was staring directly at the sun, everything was warm and radiant. "So will you be my boyfriend, Keith?"

"I- if you want to- I am not very sure of what to do." Keith replied, tensely.

Propping himself up, Lance got closer and planted a gentle kiss against his lips. "We’ll figure it out." He murmured while placing their foreheads together, Keith felt himself relax. "Together."

A knock on Lance's door interrupted their little moment, and Keith pouted internally, and cursed whoever was behind that door.

Hunk's voice came through and his anger lessened. _Who can even stay mad at Hunk?_ "Hey Lance, can I come in?"

"Sure thing buddy." Lance said while dropping back down to Keith's belly but staying with his head up with the help of his elbows and his hands.

Keith saw Hunk's clear surprise when he entered and found him there."Oh, hey Keith. Good thing you’re here too, Allura asked me to tell you two that we’re going to spend the afternoon in  a meeting, and uhm-" Hunk switched to a poor interpretation of Allura's voice and posture. " All paladins absolutely need to attend.' I’m pretty sure she was specifically talking about you guys, so I suggest you two get dressed and eat something before we head out."

Lance whined, dropping himself back on top of Keith's chest, Keith could relate to that reaction. Saying that the Council meetings were boring would be saying little, while the assemblies with Shiro and Allura were straight to the point and efficient, Shirif just dragged out topics. Keith had no idea how Shiro managed to go to so many of them.

"Do we really have to go?" Lance complained, his voice muffled by Keith’s shirt. "I totally still need to fix my relationship with Keith, we need to go on another date."  Keith tried to suppress a laugh.

"While I do love and support your relationship, you two only went to one single meeting, you haven't even seen the worst of it; and I really need you to go or Allura might skin me alive. " Hunk dramatized.

Lance looked back up and sighed. "If it's for your sake big guy, I suppose I have no choice."He paused dramatically. "I, Lance, shall make sure Keith will leave the training deck and go to the meeting." Keith rolled his eyes, a smile still at his lips.

Hunk looked at them amused. "If it makes you feel better there will be another celebration dinner today, apparently as a goodbye party."

Lance immediately brought himself back up, grinning from ear to ear. "Now you’re talking."

 

Just like they both expected, the meeting was boring. Boring and went on for way too long.

Keith didn't like Shirif for several reasons at this point, a list he wouldn't bother making. But one of those reasons was surely how she handled meetings.

She went on and on about topics that he didn't think that really mattered. He could be using his time to train or be with Lance... or possibly combine both and drag Lance into another sparring session. He wondered if Lance remembered his promise.

Looking over to Lance who was sitting right next to him, he could see that Lance was just as bored as him, if not more.  Catching his gaze Lance smirked and reached out with his hand, intertwining their fingers. It made the rest of the meeting a lot more interesting.

Another thing that made the meeting more interesting was the existence of Slav, who Keith now knew why Shiro and Lance seemed to dislike so much. At first, Keith found him somewhat amusing, but then he realized that Slav made things drag out even more and more and his mood shifted to silently hating his own existence.

_At least I have the party to look forward to._

 

The cold gentle breeze brushed against his skin, making Keith shiver slightly; especially considering that they were still being forced to wear the clothes provided by the Council, that really didn't cover much.

Keith was glad to know this would be the last time he would wear the chiton dress.

He looked over at Lance who stood beside him, with a weird looking drink in his hand; he was wearing the same dress but colored blue, as usual.

Keith might be less glad to know it would be the last time Lance wore it, but he would never admit it out loud though.

Catching him staring, Lance smiled at him. Keith thought that he would never get used to having that look being directed at him, it made him feel warmer on the inside and an unfamiliar set of positive emotions overflowing inside.

Just a week ago they had been on their cat and mouse awkward chase, stepping on eggshells around each other, while Keith pretended that his feelings didn't exist, being happy enough with how they were slowly trusting each other.

Things surely changed, now he was able to have... this. These found looks and smiles, and this proximity as they laughed together about a dumb joke. He could feel himself go dizzy from happiness.

"It's already been a week, uh?" Lance said, looking around them to the aliens who entertained themselves with dancing, eating and chatting. Keith was eternally glad that they weren't trying to make conversation with them. He wanted this moment with Lance.

"Time passed by pretty fast." Keith commented.

Lance chuckled as he took another gulp at his drink. "Especially for you, if you take out the two and half days you spent on a pod."

"I am really sorry for making you worry." He didn't want to imagine himself in Lance’s position, he already had to deal with Lance being on the pods for a couple hours before and it had been enough.

"I’m just glad to have you here again." Lance said as he finished his drink in one go and placed his cup on a nearby table.

Keith tried to suppress down the smile that tried to creep onto his lips, this weird feeling of being wanted this much felt unreal.

Lance looked up at the stars above them, humming softly. "So, tomorrow is the day, uh? Finishing this once and for all?"

"If all goes according to plan." Keith looked up to the stars as well, it reminded him of the date they had in the blue forest on the outskirts of town.

"Soon I’ll fulfill my promises then." Lance said grinning.

"Looking forward to it." Keith replied honestly.

Going back to Earth didn't appeal him much before, there was nothing there for him. He enjoyed the fighting and the purpose he had been given by being a Paladin, gave him a place where he belonged; and while it was true there was no place for him on Earth, he believed that Lance could help him find one.

Suddenly, the tone around them shifted.

A new song started playing, a ballad, the aliens went more quiet, as they slowly paired up and started dancing together. Keith observed them with curiosity, remembering how a week before he had been surprised at how galras were dancing with other aliens, and how he had wondered if Lance would ever ask him to dance like that with him.

He felt a hand around his own, he looked away from the people to see Lance grinning at him. "Want to dance?"

Keith blinked, taking a second to process the suggestion, trying to understand if it had been part of his imagination. "I wouldn't mind but- uhm, I really don't know how..." Keith admitted embarrassed, staring between Lance and the ones dancing around them.

"It's easy, c'mon I’ll lead you." Without waiting for a reply, Lance dragged him by the hand a few steps away from the table. Keith wasn't sure if it was just his imagination but he felt like the aliens around them made space just for them.

Lance turned to him, letting go of his hand to place both of his hands slightly above Keith's hips. "Now put your hands on my shoulders."

Keith did as told, and carefully placed his hands just above the buttons that held Lance’s dress together. The space between them grew shorter and shorter, just a few more inches and their noses and chests would be touching.

Lance grin kept growing, and Keith wondered if his cheeks hurt, because surely his own were.

They started swaying left and right, Lance leading them and Keith letting himself go with the flow. He forgot the rest of the world in that moment, everything around them felt out of focus and didn't really matter.

"You are getting the hang of it!" Lance told him. His voice was kind.

In that moment Keith found himself unable to regret anything. Behind the secrets he’d been keeping, that were forced out in the open without a second choice; behind the doubts he had that people would push him away, that Lance helped him through; behind the confession he was forced to tell when he never meant to, only to find out he was liked back.

Surely, he had his doubts about whether Lance would ever grow tired of him and fears that tomorrows fight could bring them more misfortune.

But above all that, in that single moment, as he swayed right a little too much and almost made them fall; Keith was happy, and judging by the way Lance laughed, he liked to believe he wasn't the only one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this was it! Finally finished this wild trip. It had a few bumps along the way, and I might not love all of it but I can surely say I grew from it and I hope you enjoyed reading it!  
> A huge thanks to everyone who commented and kudo'd along the way.
> 
> A huge thanks to proof reader: [Hanna/deadly-punch](http://deadly-punch.tumblr.com/)  
> And find me on tumblr [softklanceday](https://softklanceday.tumblr.com/) where I (hopefully) post daily klance content! The illustration at the end will be there too!


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